Photo by Rick Lovell


Most of us agree that a breakdown of personal responsibility has led to a general breakdown of social order. While we are tempted at times to think that OTHER people are the problem, our most adult response to the problems of the world is to take full responsibility for our OWN part in them.

The cleanup work begins at home.

Spending hours and hours trying to figure out how we got so messed up is ultimately not as powerful as surrendering our character defects to the the Great Spirit or the Universe and asking for them to be taken away.

In the silence of prayer, reflection and meditation, Great Spirit or the Universe, has a chance to enter our heart and mind and to do a sort of psychic surgery upon us, to rewire our souls at the deepest levels.

The value of the Catholic confession, the Jewish Day of Atonement, or the "personal moral inventory" of Alcoholics Anonymous lies in the way we bring unconscious darkness into the light.

Instead of trying to hide our faults, we should consciously aim to find them and release them to the Great Spirit or the Universe.
The Great Spirit or Universe will take from us only what we release to Them.
We don't have to hide from Their vengeance, for They are not vengeful.

Taken from: "Illuminata, a Return to Prayer" by Marianne Williamson