Irreconcilable Differences versus Reconcilable Similarities

Last October, I blogged about one of my co-workers who was going through a divorce with a cohort of anger and blame. On the days she came to work with the “quivering chin,” I knew that the slightest nuance would set her to crying with infuriation. So, I spoke as happily as I could and we got straight to business, which was best, because to be perfectly honest she wasn’t that much fun to work with.

As you would expect, the anger spilled over into the work place. I’d nonchalantly, and sometimes bluntly, pointed out that anger is stupid and doesn’t get the story straight so maybe let it go. One day, she told me she realized she had a choice, either to listen to fuming blaming thoughts, or not. And, to listen to comforting, nice thoughts is a form of prayer for healing.

Our legal system permits a divorce when the existence of significant differences between a married couple are so great and beyond resolution that they make the marriage unworkable. But, does this mean irreconcilable differences are forever?

No.

In the case with my co-worker, young children were involved and her and her ex finally saw that shrapnel from their firing of anger back and forth was hitting the children. So, they took a breath. They love their children.

Anger can rant and rave, but it will never reconcile itself to progress or happiness.

Forgiveness, humility, love, and honesty are reconcilable. From 21^st Century Science and Health, “Christ can’t reconcile Truth to error, for Truth and error are irreconcilable.”

So, anyway, a few weeks back, my co-worker and I were busy and I could tell she wanted to say something. I listened. She told me she didn’t have to take more time off from work for her “court and lawyer appointments” because her and her ex-husband are now speaking to one another, calmly. Her chin was quivering. Was she going to cry?

We both know more challenges will come up in life, but sometimes we can take a minute to cry with happiness.

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Spiritual Gratitude as Related to Everyday

Gratitude may be an absolute necessity when it comes to spiritual progress; however, gratitude is not absolute as related to everyday experiences. The tabloid version of gratitude―being thankful for health, friends, and nice things―drudges up the question, Are the people who lack in health, friends, and “stuff” not grateful?

Years ago, I was at a meeting where people were “being grateful.” A lady, who has a high-profile, high-paying job, spoke up and sincerely declared her thankfulness for the rain we’d just had (we lived in a desert). The rain gave her a reprieve from physically watering her plants and flowers in her backyard with a hose.

I said nothing. I sat in my own silence.

I live 4 miles up the road from this grateful lady and had just spent 3 days and night, with my husband, in our orchard, trying to save our cherry crop from rain damage. We failed. That crop was to pay our next year’s bills.

I was not grateful for the rain. I was tired and sad, but somewhere, somehow, I still knew gratitude. It was in the cosmos of divine knowledge.

“The Science of spirituality comes with tool in hand to separate the chaff from the wheat.” (21^st Century Science and Health)

Chaff

• gratitude is triggered by some human event or thing
• thinking humans should be grateful for the same object
• assuming gratitude for a mortal thing is absolute

Wheat

• Consciousness, gratitude, and spirituality are inextricably bound together―prolific and identifiable as us

Einstein’s theory of relativity points to the fact that life goes on despite the comparativeness of time and space. Gratitude goes on despite the comparativeness of human health, friends, and things. Gratitude can’t be warped by relativity. Appreciation can’t be diminished by an absolutist. Gratitude is spiritual, shared, and coexists with us.

Another way to look at gratitude: Spiritual gratitude is not being grateful for “time” but for ever-abiding now.