A New Day

I have waged this war against myself for many years.
It was terrible, but now I am disarmed.
I am no longer frightened of anything because love banishes fear.
I am disarmed of the need to be right
And to justify myself by disqualifying others.
I am no longer on the defensive holding onto my riches.
I just want to welcome and to share.
I don’t hold onto my ideas and projects.
If someone shows me something better – No, I shouldn’t say better, but good- I no longer seek to compare.
What is good, true and real is always for me the best,
That is why I have no fear.
When we are disarmed and dispossessed of self, if we open our hearts to the God man who makes all things new then he takes away past hurts
And reveals a new time where everything is possible.

Patriarch Athenogoras of Constantinople as quoted by Jean Vanier in Encountering the Other