Archived Lunations:
God is Good
Full Moon
April 20, 2008
0 Scorpio 43’
The last time I wrote on behalf of the Full Moon, my God had just fallen from the sky into everything. This time I want to tell you that Good feels like a better word for God. If God is not a person, not really a man or a woman, then God may be better simply identified as Good, as in the child’s grace: “God is kind. God is good.”
God is Good. This makes God more accessible, more noticeable. To paraphrase a childhood favorite Mahalia Jackson song, “Though I’ll never see a face, Good is here. Even in the darkest place, Good is near. Ask the tree, who makes it grow? Ask the Sun, who makes it glow? The answer in my heart I know, Good is here.”
Good is here where I am. Good is there where you are. We are centers of expression for that Good. If we do not express it, who will? If we do not express it, why not? Why not give Good opportunity to visit your husband, your sibling, or your neighbor through you? Why not give it the opportunity to blossom in you and warm your blood and make you feel more alive?
Let Good be in your footsteps and in your touch. Let it be in your eyes and in your mouth. Where you are most puzzled and most offended, you may say to yourself, it is Good, though I see it not.
Do yourself a favor this Full Moon at 0 degrees of Scorpio 43’. Cease to relive old pain in the present, projecting it into your future. Don’t put yourself in opposition to the people with whom you disagree.
I heard a talk recently that was good, helpful, practical, and inspirational, but there were a couple of things said that stepped on my toes. I found myself replaying the negative points in my mind, and defending them in my mind. I fondly call this “shadow boxing”. I had her on the platform repeating the negative part of her talk days past the time we both had left the building. I snapped myself out of it by admonishing myself: “Please don’t put yourself in opposition to that woman.”
I could disagree with her, but I did not have to be oppositional or attitudinal about it. And what about the good ideas I got from her talk? What about the fact that one of them got me moving with positive results? I was accentuating the negative. Old, bad habit that doesn’t make for living in a world where everything, without exception, works for good.
You can see that ultimately this woman is created by me. If I chose to accentuate the positive aspects of what she said, I would have been having a whole different experience of her in my mind. I would have been waxing about her wisdom.
My problem with this woman was that she stimulated old memories of condemnatory judgment. At that certain part of her talk, she quacked like a harsh judge, not outwardly. It was with the added flavor and color of my memory that I recoiled.
My job was to recognize that her indirect judgment (because she was making generalizations) did not have to impact me at all. I did not have to be defensive. I did not have to be moved. The part of me that was upset was the part of me that feared her judgments were true of me. I would be playing to my own worst fears.
“No one can make you inferior without your permission,” says Eleanor Roosevelt. I need to know that I am neither inferior nor superior. All things work together for Good. Blessed are those who I interact with, especially those who cause me pain when that is not their intent. It’s a beautiful world.