Attuning to Love

A Reflection on the Second Reading for August 29th, 2021:
Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

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James
1.17-18, 21-22, 27

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

Welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
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As part of my healing journey, I had to learn that most people are well-intentioned. If given the choice, most people, including myself, would choose to do what is loving and helpful to others. Unfortunately, sometimes our good intentions get mistranslated by fears, insecurities, unresolved trauma, and by the way we believe the world, and people, work. As a result, what starts off as a desire to introduce good into the world, can be transformed into actions that produce the exact opposite.

In this week’s second reading, I was reminded that God alone exists with perfect intention. His pure and good desire is expressed perfectly, and the challenge, as I’ve experienced it, has been to attune myself to understand and recognize it.

Living Christ’s teachings has been an essential component of my attunement process. Pushing myself outside of my pre-conceived ideas and expectations and then watching the outcome — not only as it plays out around me, but also the consequences within myself — has been deeply informative. I’ve become aware of many hidden and mistaken beliefs I’ve had about the way the world works, including myself and my place in it, and I’ve also learned that even the smallest of gestures can produce an abundance of good.

Trusting in God has been another important component. Particularly when it comes to facing my fears, trusting that God is looking out for me and that He’s working behind the scenes to make something good come out of my imperfect actions, gives me the reassurance I need to let go of the desire to control situations, and other people’s perceptions of me. As a consequence, I’ve been able to make choices and act in ways that would have been too overwhelming and frightening for me otherwise.

Hardest of all but likely the foundation for everything else, is believing that I am intentionally made, for good and to do good, and am deserving of love, kindness, and compassion. In other words, receiving God’s love, not only by believing that He loves me, but also by loving myself with gentleness, compassion, and mercy, has introduced new ways to act in my everyday life. Choosing to believe the best about myself, choosing to give myself the benefit of the doubt, choosing not to burden myself with unrealistic expectations about how I should look, act, and feel, gives me the mindset to make those same choices about others. Receiving God’s love has taught me that the only way that I can be sure my actions actually produce joy, love, and peace in others, is by experiencing the joy, love, and peace they produce in me when I enact them upon myself.

Also, by knowing that I’m deserving of love, I’ve learned not to take others’ unloving actions personally, regardless of their intentions. I no longer search for a problem in me that causes them to act the way they do because I now know that there is none, and that’s true for all of us.




Laura Dysart

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