Ascending the Heights Bending without Breaking Step 8

a) Meekness: As the gradual pouring of water on a fire puts out the flame completely, so the tears of genuine mourning can extinguish every flame of anger and irascibility. Saint John Climacus b) Biblical Meekness means: i) Meekness is the opposite of weakness. As a bamboo branch bends and flexes in the wind without breaking, so meekness is flexible resilient strength that can endure tests and turmoil, not by stiff resistance, but by gentle yielding. c) Meekness, is a willingness to give up your own feeble, finite strength and put your life into His hands. When we do this, nothing can prevent Him from extending to you His boundless, unquenchable, and eternal wisdom, love and power. d) Gods way up is down. i) To receive the many treasures of His Kingdom, we must recognize our own basic poverty of spirit (our own utter emptiness and inability apart from God) and, by His grace, mourn separation from Him. e) Mourning is to pursue only that Kingdom of Heaven. f) To mourn is to realize that we are all caught in a large web of sin and deceit; it is to recognize and fully believe that perfection is not possible in this world (even the saints made mistakes! g) Anger, when allowed, distorts our perspective, muddles our thinking, confuses our heart, and renders us unable to defend ourselves against the attacks of Satan. h) Meekness is the antidote to anger. i) Meekness is first of all developed by not answering back when we are spoken to in an angry way. j) How do I start on the road to meekness? i) I will never speak in an angry tone if voice to anyone who speaks in anger to me. I will not answer back in kind. The count to ten rule works well. ii) Always think before you speak. iii) Follow this with: I will not allow my mind to think angry thoughts against anyone, period. k) The goal of meekness is not merely to say nothing back, nor is it to think nothing - it is to notice nothing; to be so absent from self-concern and others-concern that the praise and the rebukes of men are not even noticed!

Ascending the Heights Letting the Past be Past Step 9

1) Remembrance of wrongs comes as the final point of anger. 2) Remembrance of wrongs is refusal to forgive; it is planning revenge; it is nourishing hurt feelings. 3) St .John is correct in pointing out that remembering wrongs is spiritually (and emotionally) destructive. 4) If you put a stop to anger you will also wiped out remembrance of wrongs. 5) When we get angry we must immediately reject the feelings of anger and disturbance as being Sataninspired and spiritually destructive. 6) We find ourselves unable to forgive the person, we must remind ourselves who is the real source of sin and destruction. i) Let your malice and your spite be turned against the devils. 7) Go to your enemy and apologize, if only with empty words whose insincerity may shame you. Then as conscience, like a fire, comes to give you pain, you may find that a sincere love of your enemy may come to life. 8) "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." -Mahatma Ghandi