Gravity is ruthless. It's tug is everlasting and relentless. We are constantly struggling against its bringing everything to the lowest possible level. Mysteriously a human body also exerts a gravitational force upon any other object with mass, like the earth. Everything is moving to another gravitational object until it reaches a point of rest, like the surface of the earth.
A stumbling block is an object that takes our balance away and makes it likely that we will collide with a larger mass until we come again to a state of balance or rest. The biblical metaphor of the stumbling block uses temptations of physical and emotional desires to make us come to a "lower" resting point.
A case in point is the desire to win a fight. When my wife and I were getting married we invited all of our uncles and aunts to the wedding. I had two uncles who were alienated from each other. Neither attended our wedding because each thought the other would be there.
They had been involved in a most-of-their-lives fight with each other over things sometimes forgotten but never forgiven. Their, at that time, current fight was over finances. Was it really pride or greed or power? In any case the "fight" was the stumbling block that brought them so low that they were not able to join our ritual with the rest of the family.
I know that I too have feelings from events that keep me from participating in the fullness of community. Those feelings are like gravity that pull on me, keeping me in a lower state. The stumbling blocks are from events I perceived as hurting me or degrading me or taking away my power. In reality my grudge-holding is the stumbling block that gave gravity the power to keep me "low."
The other reality is that when we are able to let go and forgive, flight often becomes possible. We can be released from the pull of gravity when we let our grudge go. It may not need to be so dramatic as taking to the sky. The most common anti-gravity device is a set of steps, taking us from one level to another. As with ascending a flight of stairs, taking flight can be one small step after another. Rising to another level can be as simple as that, one small step after another.
— ronnw
A stumbling block is an object that takes our balance away and makes it likely that we will collide with a larger mass until we come again to a state of balance or rest. The biblical metaphor of the stumbling block uses temptations of physical and emotional desires to make us come to a "lower" resting point.
A case in point is the desire to win a fight. When my wife and I were getting married we invited all of our uncles and aunts to the wedding. I had two uncles who were alienated from each other. Neither attended our wedding because each thought the other would be there.
They had been involved in a most-of-their-lives fight with each other over things sometimes forgotten but never forgiven. Their, at that time, current fight was over finances. Was it really pride or greed or power? In any case the "fight" was the stumbling block that brought them so low that they were not able to join our ritual with the rest of the family.
I know that I too have feelings from events that keep me from participating in the fullness of community. Those feelings are like gravity that pull on me, keeping me in a lower state. The stumbling blocks are from events I perceived as hurting me or degrading me or taking away my power. In reality my grudge-holding is the stumbling block that gave gravity the power to keep me "low."
The other reality is that when we are able to let go and forgive, flight often becomes possible. We can be released from the pull of gravity when we let our grudge go. It may not need to be so dramatic as taking to the sky. The most common anti-gravity device is a set of steps, taking us from one level to another. As with ascending a flight of stairs, taking flight can be one small step after another. Rising to another level can be as simple as that, one small step after another.
— ronnw
Comments
Post a Comment