Truth, Reconciliation and Forgiveness

The image in the header is a photo of the Rose Window in St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. It is a symbol of unity and wholeness, when all the parts within come together and are integrated with the full realization that the ONE at the center is you and that you are part of the ONE that is Spirit

Re-Visioning the Mission of Christianity - Read here

As you dock on Robben Island — Week 1 - Introduction
To read a short introduction to the history of South Africa leading up to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the leadership and teachings of Archbishop Desmond Tutu **read here**.

Recommended Reading for this course:
**No Future Without Forgiveness** by Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu
**The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World** by Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu
Recommended movie for this week:
**Cry the Beloved Country** -based on the book written by Alan Paton

“The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.”
~Alan Paton, Cry, The Beloved Country

Week 2 - The Joy of Tutu

For more … Read here

Attachment on States of Consciousness

Week 3 - Ubuntu - the Vision of Tutu

“Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. It speaks of the very essence of being human. When we want to give high praise to someone we say,‘Yu, u nobunto’; ‘Hey so-and-so has ubuntu.’ Then you are generous, you are hospitable, you are friendly and caring and compassionate. You share what you have. It is to say, ‘My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours.’ We belong in a bundle of life.”

For more … Read here

Week 4 - The Compassion of Tutu

Compassion is a concept that means living in an aware philosophy of Ubuntu/Restorative Justice/Interdependence. These concepts are easy to understand intellectually and externally.The real issue however, is how do you live an internal philosophy of ubuntu, an inner state of rehabilitating yourself, and an inner dynamic of interdependence with each and every age you have been at, stage of development you have lived through and state of consciousness you have experienced? Unless you are willing, as your Spiritual Self, to be present to every age and stage within with the philosophy of Ubuntu, with an interdependent and collaborative dynamic and with the capacity to rectify dark and regressed places that are stuck in early stages of cognitive development, and are in emotional distress and defense, NO REAL COMPASSION is happening in your external relationships. It is not possible. So called “compassion” will be inauthentic and a strategy of self-interest and defense. Archbishop Tutu could weep hearing the stories of victims during the TRC because he himself could be present to the suffering of himself being a victim. He could be firm and compassionate hearing the atrocities committed by perpetrators, because he himself knew how to be responsible and non-defensive for the ways in which perpetrated as a human being. He brought his Spiritual self to his human self - they were in relationship in Love and Truth.

For more … Read here

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=AwrEeSp5W_Nhw2MAwAQPxQt.;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZANCQVNFTElORVlDXzEEc2VjA3BpdnM-?p=youtube+videos+arcxhbishop+tutu+weeping+at+TRC&type=q3020_D3MYO_gps_bsfq&hsimp=yhs-remarklist&hspart=ima&ei=UTF-8&fr=yhs-ima-remarklist#id=58&vid=02b9f30e94d81131c995a3c3eea42941&action=view - there are many videos of the TRC that were nationally broadcast - watch the agony of Tutu listening to these testimonies. This is the face of compassion.

Recommended youtube video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2LURTu3eQ

“Your ordinary acts of love and hope point to the extraordinary promise that every human life is of inestimable value.” ~Desmond Tutu

Week 5 - The Truth and Justice of Tutu

Yes. We must take sides. We must take the side of Love, Truth and Goodness and we must turn this into ACTION, TRANSFORMATION AND CHANGE. You cannot be neutral in the face of evil. You may not turn a blind eye, to not want to be involved: to say it is “none of your business:” to say, “It’s not my responsibility - I didn’t cause the problem.” are simply projections of the ways in which you let yourself off the hook for atrocities against yourself and in relationship to yourself. Consider a way in which you hurt yourself, and do nothing about it. Yes, this is why atrocities like Nazi Germany and Apartheid can happen - because of people like you and me, who do not see our own inner perpetration and so make outside perpetration “not my problem.” If we are ONE as myriad expressions of the Divine - then everything is my responsibility. No matter the cost to your individual life, you are called to live a life in Allegiance to Truth and Love. There is only one side to take and it is the side of the Divine Consciousness that is you. Anything less than that is arrogance and disobedience. Tutu never wavered. He was in allegiance to his God, his conscience and the liberation of all humans from oppression and cruelty…. the oppression and cruelty they enact on themselves and so on others.

Consider all the ways in which you play lip service to change and transformation, turn away and live in denial to what you are doing to your body and mind. Consider how this constitutes complete injustice towards the younger aspects of your own being - how you are the Judas that sells the Christ self out for gold… or food, or drugs, or sex, or power, or, or…..?

This section on Truth and Justice will be outlined in detail in the teachings below.

Week 6 - The Difference between Retributive and Restorative Justice (Ubuntu way)

What is your internal dynamic? Do you condemn, judge and punish inner “crimes?” (Retribution).Or do you seek understanding of motive rooted in childhood trauma and bring compassion and correction to yourself? (Restoration)

For Tutu’s words , Read here

For a summary, Read here

Recommended youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6tJQRxxGTM

“It is a remarkable feat to be able to see past the inhumanity of the behavior and recognize the humanity of the person committing the atrocious acts. This is not weakness. This is heroic strength, the noblest strength of the human spirit.” ~Tutu

“Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.” ~Tutu

Week 7 - The Difference between being Judgmental and being Discerning

For more … Read here

“In order to truly forgive oneself, one must either explicitly or implicitly acknowledge that one’s behavior was wrong and accept responsibility or blame for such behavior. Without these elements, self-forgiveness is irrelevant and pseudo self-forgiveness becomes likely.” ~Tutu

“You have stood at this junction before You will stand at this junction again And if you pause you can ask yourself Which way to turn You can turn away from your own sadness And run the race named revenge You will run that tired track again and again Or you can admit your own pain And walk the path that ends In this direction lies freedom, my friend I can show you where hope and wholeness make their homes But you can’t push past your anguish on your way there To find the path to peace You will have to meet your pain And speak its name” ~Desmond Tutu

Week 8 - Self Forgiveness or Self Condemnation

Read the introductory exercise to this topic here. Do this exercise before reading the teaching

Read the teaching on Self-Forgiveness here.

Consider this photo - there is an inner perpetrator and an inner victim - can you see your own inner dynamic in this picture. Likewise read the quote below as an internal dynamic, not an external one.

Recommended movie for this week:

Invictus with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela - how to reconcile “Black and White (Victim/Perpetrator)

“As we make the journey inward with our people, we will come to the next challenge to our compassion: those inner community members who have actively brought harm to the young ones inside. This is such tender territory, a place where we need to acknowledge the suffering our people have sustained without demonizing and alienating the ones who brought it, for they are now part of the ones in our care as well.This can be radical inclusiveness at its most healing, widening our joined windows of tolerance to truly accept every part.” ~Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

Week 9 - Introduction to What Forgiveness is and is Not

For more … Read here

“At the heart of all anger, all grudges, and all resentment, you'll always find a fear that hopes to stay anonymous.” ~Donald L. Hicks

“Forgiving is not forgetting; its actually remembering--remembering and not using your right to hit back. Its a second chance for a new beginning. And the remembering part is particularly important. Especially if you dont want to repeat what happened.” ~Desmond Tutu

Connect internally to younger aspects of self

Week 10 - Self-Forgiveness - you don’t need a priest!

· Have you ever said,

I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for what I said/did?
· What is it about yourself that you continue to judge, criticize, and condemn?
· Have you ever paused to wonder what you mean by that?
· What does “forgiveness” mean to you?
· Did you mean that what you did or said is “unforgiveable?”
· Why would you say that?
· What is the feeling accompanying this statement?
· Why did you say or do what you did that you find “unforgiveable?”
· What would be the purpose of not “forgiving” yourself?

We often think we know what we are saying, but do we really? Consider the above questions again and see if you can come up with a detailed understanding of what the statement means to you. Spend some time journaling on the questions above and spend a week researching and trying to understand why you would say something like, “I could never forgive myself.” Have this discussion with others and ask them the questions and see what others think and understand about the concept of inner self forgiveness.

Unless you know what forgiveness is, know the process of reaching forgiveness, and are willing to embark on this process, you will stay in a prison cell forever, judged and sentenced by yourself. Are you someone who believes in retributive justice or restorative justice? Can you achieve this within? Or do you live retributive justice within yourself?

I have just given you a clue. Forgiveness is a deep inner process - it is not a one-time statement of “I forgive myself.”

So, for starters: Forgiveness is a process, not a single event.

Can you start discerning for yourself what that inner process might be and what is required of you?

For more … Read here

“Dear Child of God, I write these words because we all experience sadness, we all come at times to despair, and we all lose hope that the suffering in our lives and in the world will ever end. I want to share with you my faith and my understanding that this suffering can be transformed and redeemed. There is no such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine. God created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always, can do so now--in our personal lives and in our lives as nations, globally. ... Indeed, God is transforming the world now--through us--because God loves us.” ~ Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time

Week 11 - For those that have been hurt by organized religion - the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation

“In the end what matters is not how good we are but how good God is. Not how much we love Him but how much He loves us. And God loves us whoever we are, whatever we’ve done or failed to do, whatever we believe or can’t.”
~Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Can we learn to be like God to ourselves?

When you know yourself as the Highest Authority of your life and you know this Self as One with Spirit (Consciousness of Love and Truth), then you do not need anyone else to mediate mercy, compassion and correction. You do it for yourself.

For more … Read here

I am not I.

I am this one

walking beside me whom I do not see,

whom at times I manage to visit,

and whom at other times I forget;

the one who remains silent while I talk,

the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,

the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,

the one who will remain standing when I die.

~Spanish poet Juan Ramon Jimenez

“I have used the following analogy to try to explain the need for a perpetrator to confess. Imagine you are sitting in a dank, stuffy and dark room. This is because the curtains are drawn and the windows have been shut. Outside the light is shining and a fresh breeze is blowing. If you want the light to stream into that room and the fresh air to flow in, you will have to open he window and draw the curtains apart; then the light which has always been available will come in and air will enter the room to freshen it up. So it is with forgiveness. The victim may be ready to forgive and make the gift of her forgiveness available, but it is up to the wrongdoer to appropriate the gift - to open the window and draw the curtains aside. He does this by acknowledging the wrong he has done, so letting the light and fresh air of forgiveness enter his being.” ~Desmond Tutu

Turn your eye inward to the center in order to know

Week 12 - What are the Exact Steps to Take if I Wrong Someone? If Someone Wrongs Me?

This work is all about reconciliation between your own inner victim and perpetrator as outlined above in Week 4 and in Week 10. If you are living this, then it will show in your outer relationships too.

When you wrong another person you will …. Read here

When someone else wrongs you, you will … Read here

Watch this week how often you can own something fully without defensiveness, made amends and change. And watch how often this week you attack and blame someone else for your feelings instead of speaking for yourself and doing your own inner work with whatever arose.

I got such a lovely quote from someone today. Archbishop Tutu would love it!!! I can hear him laughing out loud. She said in quoting something Charisse had said,

Charisse’s phrase :” if you’re not sure whose shit it is, it’s your shit”
Recently I suddenly understood it in my guts.
Before it was not clear to me what that means. Now I got it.
”If I am clear on my shit then it’s obvious when it’s the shit of somebody else.
If I’m not clear on my shit then I still have a lot of shit to work through and that’s more important than any external shit.

If I see somebody else’s shit there’s no point in yelling at them.”.

The Great Mother’s Prayer to the Abuser

To those who withhold refuge,

I cradle you in safety at the core of my Being.

To those who cause a child to cry out,

I grant you the freedom to express your own choked agony.

To those who inflict terror,

I remind you that you shine with the purity of a thousand suns.

To those who would confine, suppress, or deny,

I offer the limitless expanse of the sky.

To those who need to cut, slash or burn,

I remind you of the invincibility of Spring

To those who cling and grasp,

I promise more abundance than you could ever hold onto.

To those who vent their rage on small children,

I return to you your deepest innocence.

To those who must frighten into submission,

I hold you in the bosom of your original mother.

To those who cause agony to others,

I give the gift of free flowing tears.

To those who deny another’s right to be,

I remind you that the angels sang

in celebration of you on the day of your birth.

To those who see only division and separateness,

I remind you that a part is born only by bisecting a whole.

For those who have forgotten the tender mercy of a mother’s embrace,

I send a gentle breeze to caress your brow.

To those who still feel somehow incomplete,

I offer the perfect sanctity of this very moment.

~ Unknown

In Conclusion - The Rainbow Nation - a Land of Tears - my personal heartache

For more … Read here

Truth, Reconciliation and Forgiveness

Re-Visioning the Mission of Christianity - Read here

Week 1 - Introduction

Week 2 - The Joy of Tutu

Week 3 - Ubuntu - the Vision of Tutu

Week 4 - The Compassion of Tutu

Week 5 - The Truth and Justice of Tutu

Week 6 - The Difference between Retributive and Restorative Justice (Ubuntu way)

Week 7 - The Difference between being Judgmental and being Discerning

Week 8 - Self Forgiveness or Self Condemnation

Week 9 - Introduction to What Forgiveness is and is Not

Week 10 - Self-Forgiveness - you don’t need a priest!

Week 11 - For those that have been hurt by organized religion - the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation

Week 12 - What are the Exact Steps to Take if I Wrong Someone? If Someone Wrongs Me?

In Conclusion - The Rainbow Nation - a Land of Tears - my personal heartache

Therapy Notes - Digging Deep

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