Guilt As Motivation
The Conversation
Elements From The Conversation
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"I am convinced that guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely the defenses of the False Self as it is shocked at its own poverty — the defenses of a little man who wants to be a big man. God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same (which is tragically, due to our mistaken images of God, exactly what has happened!)."
Richard Rohr
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"It is about as hard to absolve yourself of your own guilt as it is to sit in your own lap. Wrongdoing sparks guilt sparks wrongdoing ad nauseam, and we all try to disguise the grim process from both ourselves and everybody else. In order to break the circuit we need friends before whom we can put aside the disguise, trusting that when they see us for what we fully are, they won't run away screaming with, if nothing worse, laughter. Our trust in them leads us to trust their trust in us. In their presence the fact of our guilt no longer makes us feel and act out our guiltiness. For a moment at least the vicious circle stops circling and we can step down onto the firm ground of their acceptance, where maybe we'll be able to walk a straight line again. "Your sins are forgiven," Jesus said to the paralytic, then "Rise," whereupon the man picked up his bed and went home (Matthew 9:2-7)."
Frederick Buechner
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Music
We send this for you. With love.
George & Matilda
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