If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off.
—Mark 9.43
I can feel bad about my sin,
promise and wish and hope to do better…
and likely sin again.
Or I can look deeper, at what leads me to sin.
What is the wound, the want, the fear,
that pushes me around?
I don’t need to split myself apart,
nor can I just get rid of any part of me:
fear and hurt don’t work like that.
But I can unplug its energy,
cut off its blood supply,
cut it off from access to my power.
I can name my fear and hurt, honor it,
and let it be, without letting it control me.
I can cut it off from guiding my choices.
I can let it be an urge, a response,
what I feel—but not who I am.
I can cut it off from defining me.
I know, I’m so used to it
it’ll feel like cutting off a part of myself
to disempower my anger, my greed—
but maybe getting free
from the grip of my fear and hurt
is just what it means to be whole.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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