The meme attached to today’s blog explains why suffering is Grace. We chose to come into this incarnation because of the need to smooth out attachments, clinging, controlling, aversions and attractions. We come to learn forgiveness. Anne Lamott calls earth “forgiveness school.”

We can’t learn unconditional love and forgiveness from the part of the mind attached to the ego, where clinging, aversions and attractions are the common theme. The thinking of the world is based on ego consciousness. It is the work of a lifetime to raise consciousness to encompass the spirit and soul inherent in each moment, in nature, and trees, rocks, flowers, dirt, earth. If we refuse to forgive and open the heart to love, we may have to “keep coming back” in order to learn these lessons.

Yet to relinquish the grip ego has on our psyche, we must not have an agenda as to what it looks like, or have an idea of outcome, especially the aversion of coming back to earth school. That thought is rooted in fear and loveless perception.

In the few years leading up to my brothers passing, we had numerous discussions about death. My brother was deeply depressed and he wouldn’t listen to me. But had I been able to articulate the concepts listed here, I know he’d be at least interested. I know he is listening now.

There’s a cost to armoring the heart to life and love. There is a cost to using the intellect to protect the heart. We tend to close ourselves off from the suffering of the world, through denial or simply looking away.

Right here, right now, cultivating the awe of that which surrounds us, allowing the heart to open, is the beginning to Big Love and Forgiveness. Om