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SPIRITUAL DIRECTION

A friend of mine who worked in Jewish-Palestinian through God’s eyes, as it were, our heart naturally fills
dialogue once told me that he has a personal practice with love.
in the midst of difficult dialogue to gaze into each face Let us explore one final way of bringing sacred perspec-
at the table and say to himself, “This, too, is the face of tive to the energy of grievance and enmity. For many
God.” Can you imagine saying this to the image of your years, I have practiced Buddhist metta (lovingkindness)
“opponent,” the one who has hurt you, frightened you, or meditation, in which one directs a series of four phrases
outraged you? Can you see and feel God’s presence in the of well-wishing toward oneself, then toward a loved one,
other and in your own heart? then toward a difficult person, and eventually to all the
Or consider yet another potentially transformative world. For extended periods of time, we silently recite
image in the midst of the most painful of conflicts, as phrases such as these, adapted from traditional Buddhist
expressed in the following early twentieth-century com- metta phrases, over and over again:
mentary to the biblical verse on vengeance and grudge-
taking. May you be safe and protected from harm.
May you be well in body and mind.
“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against May you be happy.
your countrymen. Love your neighbor as yourself: I am May you be at peace.
God.” (Lv 19:18)
This profound practice was created as a tool for culti-
Why the juxtaposition of “I am God” to the beginning of vating compassion, not specifically for the alleviation of
the verse? . . . The intention is to explain the beginning of conflict. But it can be enormously powerful in gradually
the verse: “You shall not take vengeance . . .” Should you melting animosity in the heart. When the heart fills with
say in any form, “How can I work on myself so that there kindness and compassion, the fear and threat at the heart
will be no ill feeling against the other and I can even love of conflict can ease, and sometimes what emerges in its
him?” The verse comes to respond, “I am God.” I am God place is an opening toward genuine desire for the well-
who has loved him . . . Likewise you can love him. In truth being of self and other. In the stance of fight-or-flight
it is a simple matter. For when one sees in one’s fellow only we see ourselves as distant and separate from the other.
the aspect of the material in which he or she is clothed, the In lovingkindness we reconnect. We recognize the full
other seems as nothing in one’s eyes. And, in particular, human vulnerability and giftedness of all people—both
if in any matter the other is against you, you dismiss the ourselves and the other. We know that we are one in this
other in your thoughts. It is not the same with the Blessed difficult business of living a human life. The heart soft-
Holy One, who knows the essence of the holy root of a ens, and, if a conflict is ripe for new understanding, new
human soul. (Kagan, chapter 6) possibilities may emerge.
Think again of the person you pictured earlier, the
The commentator ponders the juxtaposition of the person with whom you have been in conflict. Try closing
verse forbidding vengeance to the lofty command to love your eyes and, for several minutes, offer them another
one’s neighbor. It is as if the text said, “Do not take ven- set of blessings, based on the biblical priestly blessing of
geance; rather, love your neighbor.” Rabbi Kagan defines Numbers 6:24–26.
love of neighbor as requiring us not only to refrain from
acting out our grudges and grievances, but to turn inward May you be blessed and protected from harm.
to say, “How can I work on myself to transform my ill May you be filled with light and grace.
feeling toward the other into love?” So, too, the rabbi May you be loved and blessed with peace.
notes the presence of the majestic words, “I am God,” at
the end of the verse, imagining that these words implore One should not expect such a practice to instantly
us to view our adversary not in his limited human form dissolve entrenched, agonizing conflicts in our lives. But
but as a sacred soul created by God. Seeing the other gently ask yourself whether your adversary looks any

32 Presence: An International Journal of Spiritual Direction