You probably clenched your fists, hunched your shoulders, and furrowed your
brow. Anger is your reaction to resistance – when your passion is thwarted,
when there is interference in bringing your love into the world, which is what
the Lord created for you to do – felt as an emotion.
Have you ever been afraid? Right now you are thinking about walking up
here on stage in a few minutes. In front of everyone. Everyone will be looking
at you. You are trying to remember, which hand do I take the diploma with?
There is a small tinge of fear, right? And you are feeling something in your
stomach? That is amazing: you anticipate something happening, you have a
thought about it, and then an emotion, and that becomes a physical feeling
in your body. This happens all the time, to everyone. It must be that the
Lord created it to work this way. Surely He created this spiritual and physical
interactive system for a purpose.
And now consider sadness. In a little while you will be saying goodbye
to some friends. Perhaps your best friend. Your parents can tell you that you
might not see your classmates for years. That’s just sad. The negative thoughts
come, feelings of sadness arise, tears well up in your eyes, the corners of your
mouth turn down. Your spirit is showing.
Now I am not an angry person. And I don’t worry much. But sadness;
well sadness is like a river flowing deep within my mind and my body. Most
of the time it is calm, and slow moving. But every once in a while the river
level rises, and the waves of grief lap at the edges of my consciousness, and
when they overflow their banks, I feel sad. Everyone has felt this. Some more
than others. Our love, which is an image of the Lord’s love, wants connection,
presence. And when that connection
or presence is threatened or lost, we
feel sad. The Lord designed sadness as
a reminder of what love is.
We know from the Word, and
from our personal experience,
that there is a flow of life from the
Lord through our souls, into our
consciousness, and as well, into our
bodies. That flow of love creates our
emotions. So when you experience
that anger, joy, sadness or fear, you
are connecting your thoughts with
your emotions and with your physical
feelings. And whenever you live in
that flow, you play life full out.
My experience of the Academy
My experience of the
Academy is that all the
educators are using
their wisdom, their
spiritual gifts and
their acquired skills to
cultivate your adult, fully
human, understanding
and feeling of the flow
of the Lord’s love.
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