You have found your soul friend

According to Celtic spiritual tradition, the soul shines all around the boy like a luminous cloud. When you are very open – appreciative and trusting – with another person, your two souls flow together. This deeply felt bond with another person means you have found an ANAM CARA or "soul friend." Your ANAM CARA always beholds your light and beauty, and accepts you for who you truly are.

Attending to our souls

We allow loss of soul awareness at our own peril and that of humanity and planet Earth! We can only become authentic individuals by attending to our souls throughout our lives.

If we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while

If we want to support each other's inner lies, we must remember a simple truth. The human soul does not want to be fixed, it wants simply to be seen and heard. If we want to see and hear a person's soul, there is another truth we must remember.The soul is like a wild animal – tough, resilient, and yet shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.

Taking the key of forgiveness of out of our own pocket

Despite repeated breaches of trust, Papa found the courage and humility to forgive those who betrayed or hurt him again and again: "I would rather trust and be betrayed, than to live in mistrust." He never tired of preaching forgiveness or pointing out that when people spend their lives harboring grudges, they become crippled by unwittingly binding themselves to the person they cannot forgive. They are imprisoned, yet they refuse to take the key of forgiveness out of their own pocket and unlock the door.

What the the most authentic sign of forgiveness?

The most authentic sign we can give ourselves that we have actually begun the process of forgiveness is our prayer. This is true even if the only prayer we can say is to ask to want to forgive. In the beginning ít may be too much for us even to pray for the person who hurt us. Perhaps all r¡re can do is to pray for ourselves — to pray that for our own sake we may begin the process of forgiveness. Prayer is a way of recognizing and acknowledging God's movement towards us and God's gift of grace

Forgive the ingrown toenail

FORGIVENESS is not simply the absolving of an enemy, or one who has done us wrong. Forgiveness must encompass all those things which disturb the tranquility of our soul: the barking dog that robs you of sleep, the heat of summer, the cold of winter; forgive the ingrown toenail, the flea that bites; forgive the cranky child, wrinkles, a forgotten birthday... And these are only a beginning. Such forgiveness must be practiced daily and with sincerity

Ask to learn how to forgive others

In the silence, ask to learn
how to give of yourself,
how to forgive others, and
how to live with gratitude.
Thus, we need not seek inner peace:
Peace will find us!

Blessed are you who forgive
without remembering
and
you who receive forgiveness
without forgetting.

Even as the silence exposes my subtle deceptions, my inauthenticity, my "sins" (much deeper than a mere catalog of misdeeds) -- it exposes at the same time God's unconditional love for me:

  • surprising in its lack of judgment,
  • astounding in its completeness,
  • and flavored with a sweet forgiveness.

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