Jesus said “Blessed are the peacemakers”
however, to work for and sustain peace
you have to be at peace in your own heart
not angry and hateful of the “wrongdoers” –
if you fight evil with your own evil
you will simply replace one evil with another.
You cannot deal effectively with the
hurt/anger/shadow/jealousy/deceit in others
until you have dealt with these things in yourself –
then there is no judgement/condescension toward others.
A fruitful way of discovering your shadow
is to identify with one scripture figure:
Mary or Martha/the prodigal son or his older brother –
the one you don’t identify with is your shadow
and can teach you inner transformation.
According to Paul Tillich in The Courage to Be
there are three forms of inner transformation:
the courage to be vs not be
(to choose life not death)
the courage of faith vs meaninglessness
(to trust that it all somehow makes sense)
the courage to accept God’s acceptance of you
vs condemnation (to trust that God
is merciful/forgiving/your unconditional lover).
Teresa of Avila’s entire mystical theology
is about finding God’s Inner Flow/River of God within you
and stop wasting your time digging for water on your own –
let the Spirit do the work of transformation
and stop striving for perfection.
Silence and solitude are the heart of prayer –
they allow us to: go within and listen to God
let God shine light into our shadow
stop being driven by our noisome world
which incessantly clamors for our attention.
Without silence and solitude
the Spirit has no room to make its home in us
and is forced to vacate the premises
of our soul.
Intelligent Christian Spirituality 