The growing awareness of one's imperfection that comes with spiritual progress is not a shame-filled experience, but a pure, humble and healing awareness. It comes as we begin to glimpse, very faintly, the vastness of divine love, the depths of peace, the unshakable faith of those precious few souls who know God face to face. In these glimpses, we realize that the perfection to which we are called is so far from our current state that to feel ashamed seems silly. The task is so nearly impossible that it's a wonder we're on the path at all.
About a year ago I was on my way into a church to attend a meeting. As I approached the door I passed a woman sitting on a red, overturned milk crate near the door. She had dark hair, and she was leaning forward, her bottom coming off the crate, her hands reaching just off the edge of the sidewalk and toward the asphalt of the parking lot. She appeared to be slowly falling forward, tumbling off the crate in slow motion. I had stopped to hold the door for a man who was entering the church just behind me, and as I watched, he approached the woman on the crate. "Here's two of them," he said, handing down a carton of Marlboro Light 100s. "Have a good day." I realized then what the man with the Marlboros must have recognized immediately: the woman had no doubt been reaching for a discarded cigarette butt that someone had tossed down on their way into the church. I felt awed by the man's simple act of compassion. Without the slightest trace of judgement or distast...
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