On QuakerPagans@yahoogroups.com, C- wrote, "You are sick--and have permission from the universe to feel sorry for yourself if that helps. "

With which I concurred:

Since Spirit and the Universe *does* feel sorry for us when we're sick, we feeling that "sorry" for ourself is we doing the work of Spirit and the Universe, or at least allowing Spirit and the Universe to do its work into us: not getting in the way and refusing its work. *Not* feeling sorry for oneself is to block compassion, which is a very great sin. *Not* feeling sorry for oneself, not loving oneself, seems to me to be one of those body-defying supremacist things we've been loaded down under.

I know this sin against Loving Spirit because I am constantly struggling to allow love in ... to let sex in ... to let Spirit come to me in its funky, sexy, open-throated, wailing, loving way.

Of course, it's not bad to criticize oneself for feeling sorry for oneself, after one has done so. After a good long cry, one does have to get up off the floor, brush off one's knees, straighten one's clothing, wipe one's nose, and hmmph oneself back to one's gardening, or cooking, or board meeting, or whatever. (Actually, that same transition back to humdrum life happens after sex too, no?)

Of course, that can be hard when ONE IS STILL SUFFERING! (That's when I start talking to Spirit as the Fucker in the Sky. He lets me do that. It seems to open me up to him -- which he likes. Grrrrr.)

Yours,
Daniel