26 No love without openness to all that is

LG26

Jesus said:
You do see the splinter in the eye of your brother
but you don’t see the beam in your own eye.
If you remove the beam from your own eye,
then you will see clearly enough
to remove the splinter from the eye of your brother.

You can look at a fellow man with eyes of love. They invite the other person to come out, to show themselves.

You can also look at a fellow human being with a judgmental look. Is that one of us? Does it behave according to our own norms and values? Has it adjusted properly?

Love is: allowing a fellow person to be different from yourself. If you are not prepared to do this, you cannot see the human being in the other, nor can there be charity.

Love can only flourish in total openness to all that is. Only someone who makes peace with himself, stops fighting himself, can achieve this openness. That means in the practice of life that one disarms oneself, puts down one’s armor, and is prepared to be touched, also by pain and sorrow. In the free space that this openness creates, love will present itself as the ground of existence for itself and for other people.

We can experience a meeting with a fellow man on two different levels. The one level is that of the description of reality, within which all kinds of dogmas and rules tell how to behave in certain circumstances.

An example:

The Jewish and Palestinian women from Logion 5 are each other’s enemies at the level of the description. But the grief of a Palestinian mother who loses a child in that struggle is the same as the grief of a Jewish mother who loses a child. That is the other level, that of the soul. Whoever chooses the level of the soul sees the human in the sorrow of both mothers. By daring to see that and putting it above the doctrine, you yourself become human.

Another example:

Children who have died without baptism should not be buried in sacred earth, as explained in the explanation to Logion 6. If you look at your fellow man with that norm in mind, then that judgment is the bar in your own eye.

You see that those fellow people have failed because they did not baptise their child. You supposedly see the splinter in the eye of your brother. But you don’t see that it is a splinter from the bar in your own eye.

‘See the human being’ was said earlier in logion 5. Not the human being as he is according to the agreed images and norms, but the human being that you see if you dare to open the windows of your soul. If you can look at it that way, your soul will be moved by what you see. If you then act from that compassion, your actions will be an expression of true love.

At the level of the doctrine the Jewish and Palestinian women are each other’s enemies, and according to the doctrine the baptised child may not be buried in sacred earth. But the two women and the pastor put the touch of their heart above all agreements. They then act as a human being towards a fellow human being.

They have removed the beam in their eye.

And as a result, that alleged splinter suddenly disappeared in the eye of the other.