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 This is another of those gentle reflections from Francis today worth sitting with for a while. It's a reflection on 'self' — his 'self' but it so easily applies to all of us. A couple of weeks ago we included a Sinfonia from Beethoven with one of Tom McMahon's commentaries. That music is included again today as you might like to sit with what Francis writes for a little while.
I begin to see myself as God sees me. I now embrace myself as my Creator embraces me. I accept myself as God created me: a creator. Creativity is an essential part of me. I cannot help but create. I am creating constantly. Every thought I allow is bringing into being an event, an object or a quality. What am I to create now for my next instant or my tomorrow? Will it promote compassion and love, or will it offer fear? Will it foster peace or trauma? Will I create the qualities of totality, forgiveness, compassion and wisdom, or will I create the values that instill the restrictive qualities so common in my life, scarcity, poor health, resentfulness, anger, judgment and uncertainty? The choice is mine. I judge not nor feel guilty about these restrictive qualities; they are past. I no longer give them power over me. Now is the present instant. In this instant I am the presence of Heaven. I am at ease, experiencing myself as the Anointed, and accepting, as a temporary teaching and communication devise, a body. I ask myself: "What will the thought within my body create for my next instant, for my next minute, my next hour, my next day, and my next month? Why do I cling to past restrictive thoughts? Do I want the effect they seem to cause? Do I want to prove those thoughts right or do I want to be happy?"
God does not coerce. My free will is intact. God will wait for me to choose aright. My restrictive thoughts are what keep me from God and carry their own pain and their own warning. Right thoughts give me peace. 2006
When I was a young person I wanted to be The Herald of the Great King. That was a pebble I wanted, at the time, to drop into the pool of my awareness. However I also saw a pebble that was a thought of unworthiness, a thought that such a goal was too grand for me. That is the pebble I dropped. I mistook the ripples as confirming in me a poor and benighted being unable to reach the knighthood that was my desire. Oh! How numerous were the desires that were referred to the recesses of my mind by limiting thoughts! The pool of my awareness was regularly filled with ripples arising from thoughts of self denigration leaving thoughts of grandeur for me in self pity to merely pine over. It was parents, priests, nuns and brothers that I blamed. I thought I was a victim of the world. I believed my mind was taken over by others who filled me with ideas (influenced by Jansen) of sinfulness and unworthiness. I put a value on the beliefs that I had called into my life. These were the pebbles I was dropping into my pond rather than those that represented thoughts of the grandeur with which I was created. It is time for me to assume complete responsibility for the life that I have made for myself by the beliefs I had adopted. It is about time that I began to use time to decide what pebbles I will drop into the pool of my awareness. I realize that I have a lot of undoing to occupy me. However, as I let go of the past and begin to live in the now, I begin to create my tomorrows and I begin to do it consistently. I begin to be vigilant about the thoughts I entertain. I begin to drop the pebbles I have been keeping to one side, pebbles that symbolize the thoughts of God rather than those that feelings of guilt and fear generate. I have a marble bag full of the kind of pebbles that symbolize so much of what God has created me to be. What about this one: I and my Father are one? Or am I going to choose to drop one I see on the ground: I feel miserable today? I am free to choose either. Which will it be? I can choose to feel myself a victim of the world I've made or will I accept myself as God created me to be. I can change the way I think about myself but I cannot escape being the beloved extension of God. 2005
I am one Self. As Created I am whole and I am secure in absolute light and my joy and peace is complete. My Source is God, and my being is one with God who is All-There-Is. 
Francis Brown
What are your thoughts on this commentary? ©2009Francis Brown |
Being True Self
It's one or the other. I know God wants me to be happy. I choose to have love as my guide. 
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Francis Brown is a priest of the Roman Catholic Rite who was ordained in St Stephen's Cathedral in Brisbane in 1953 after completing study and training at St Paschal's College in Box Hill, Victoria. He served as a missionary in Papua New Guinea with a group of fellow Franciscans from 1955 to 1973. Having obtained permission to marry in 1973 he worked amongst the villagers on road construction and continued as their elected representative in Local Government. At the end of 1973 he, along with his wife, Mary, continued family life in Australia. He worked as a Probation and Parole Officer before retirement and has continued an active engagement in the parish and community life of the suburb of Kingsgrove South-West of Sydney. His main hobby is writing poetry and prose endeavouring to help himself and others gain a greater awareness of God and all as One.
Michael Morwood: "The Challenge in Resurrecting Jesus in Society Today" In this address given to WATAC (Women and the Australian Church) members on 26th March 2013, Michael Morwood outlines the challenges he sees the Church facing in the years ahead. This address was given in the theatrette of the NSW Parliament at a meeting to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. 33m 34s [Commentary on the Catholica where this address was published on 29Mar2013] | [WATCH THE VIDEO]
Reports 028: 29Mar2013
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