#BIGRead14
Today’s poem focuses on ‘Reconciliation‘ - a tough topic, that we can all too easily skim over. Having just spent the day on an excellent ’emotional intelligence’ course with Andrew Scott, one of the standout elements of the day was his passion for the stories/narratives we weave around ourselves, and - particularly - around others … which then tend to become self-fulfilling prophesies - especially dangerous if those are ‘negative’ stories (“he never listens”, etc).
I have made an other of you.
And you have made an other of me.
Stephen has done a lot of work on forgiveness (including the difficulty of being able to truly forgive, and the damage that can be done by being forced to say you forgive when that stage hasn’t been reached mentally) - and encourages us to truly see the person behind the picture we have drawn:
to read the hope, the aspiration, the desire,
that makes no sense to us,
no sense at all.
to seek reconciliation and relationship. It feels a bit ‘Miss World’, but would ‘world peace’ ever actually be possible with a bit more of this…
Thank Bex. I’m aware of Stephen Cherry’ writing. Particularly his book on humility Barefoot Disciple. He’ got an angle on things which is unique and which I much admire. I wrote a review of Barefoot Disciple, must drag it out and publish somewhere.
He’s written a book on forgiveness .. that I haven’t had time to read yet!! We were originally thinking of creating some kind of conversation around that but we didn’t have the capacity .. maybe one day!!