Joy is a difficult aspiration

Where there is injury, let me sow pardon.
  – Saint Francis of Assisi

from Easwaran: “Once, in wintertime, it is said that Francis and his disciple Brother Leo were making a hard journey on foot through the snowy countryside of Italy. They had been walking along in silence for a long time when Brother Leo turned to Francis and asked him, “How can we find perfect joy?” Francis stopped and replied, “Even if all our friars were perfect in their holiness and could work all kinds of miracles for others, we still would not have perfect joy.”

He turned and walked on, and Brother Leo ran after him. “Then what is perfect joy?” Francis stopped again, “Even if we could speak with the birds of the air and the beasts of the field and know all the secrets of nature, we still would not have perfect joy. Even if we could cure all the ills on the face of the earth, we would still not have found perfect joy.”

Brother Leo was practically shouting: “Then please, Father Francis, what is the secret of perfect joy?”

“Brother, suppose we go to that monastery across the field and tell the gatekeeper how weary and cold we are, and he calls us tramps and beats us and throws us out into the winter night. Then, Brother, if we can say with love in our hearts, Bless you in the name of Jesus,’ then we shall have found perfect joy.”

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Conclusions- So finding “perfect” or purified, whole joy in this life  -it can be concluded-comes from the spiritual discipline of being able to bless—in an intentional and sincere way-others, even when those others are cursing or hurting me intentionally.

My spiritual conclusion is that Yeshua, the anointed one reached this point of perfect joy when he prayed: “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing”—even as the wicked soldiers were nailing his beaten, scarred body on the crucifixion beams.

This is the path He is leading us to follow.

Not many really want to follow Him to that degree!   Simple forgiveness towards those who have caused our hurt feelings seems to be a bigger challenge than most of us can achieve in our rigid ego driven psyches.

The surrender necessary for true obedience becomes a bit costly, doesn’t it?

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