With last week's fabulous solar eclipse we entered the next phase of the Earth's cosmic journey round the Sun. We perceive that the days are growing shorter and that the weather is changing. Falling leaves, ripening grain, early morning mists and a new crispness in the air alert us to the changing season.
If we are sensitive we will detect the inner promptings that encourage us to begin anew in our personal work. The time is propitious for new beginnings, but to experience the benefit we first have to make peace with our past.
We're now in the month of Ellul in the Jewish calendar, which encourages us to take a spiritual inventory before the Jewish New Year begins.
Though we don't celebrate a new year at this time in the secular calendar, nor in the Christian one, we do respond to the new energies which are beginning to influence us at the end of summer. Schools, colleges and universities begin a new scholastic year, while Work groups all over the world return to regular meetings.
In the agricultural year, farmers in the northern hemisphere are now in the midst of harvesting all the crops that were sown in spring; in the same way, in the spiritual sphere, we take an inventory of all we've gleaned from the previous year, to see where our pilgrimage has led us and what we've learned on the way.
An important part of this season is to seek forgiveness for the wrongs we've done to others.
We've been looking at the psychological and spiritual implications around forgiving others. We've seen that forgiveness is absolutely essential for our spiritual growth, and is commanded by Jesus Christ, the Head of Conscious Humanity.
Now, in Ellul, and approaching the Christian season of Michaelmass, it's time to see where we ourselves also need to be forgiven.
In the Jewish tradition, Ellul is the month when we begin to take stock of our spiritual "goods", as it were, and one of the most important aspects of doing this is very similar to the Twelve Step Inventory: we are obliged to look honestly and fearlessly at ourselves, as AA puts it, and to see the many occasions when we've caused harm to another person.
And then we have to ask that person's forgiveness.
Unless we've done so, the Bible, the Jewish and the Christian traditions, which of course stem from the same source, tell us we have no right to expect God to forgive us. It's in the Lord's Prayer, composed by Jesus, who says we must ask God to "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who've trespassed against us".
This part of the prayer concerns our sins against God, and our forgiveness of others, but Jesus goes further when He tells us that if anyone has any cause to be angry with us, we must at least make the attempt to be reconciled with them before we dare to approach God.
In Jewish law, which is the background from which Jesus teaches us, every Orthodox Jew must honestly account for the misdeeds they've performed that have harmed people. He or she must then seek out the person they harmed and offer them a complete and sincere apology. If amends or restitution are called for, they must be given. Only then is the person spiritually clean, and able to stand before God.
AA asks us to do exactly the same when we make our personal inventory. We are told to apologize and make amends to every single person we have hurt before we can make any further spiritual progress and consolidate our recovery.
Although the major inventory is part of the Steps, and must be carried out sooner or later in regard to our entire lives before recovery, a lesser inventory - but one which is just as important - must be carried out daily. We have to review our behaviour every day, and be quick to apologize and make our amends when we see where we have hurt another person.
It's easy to say, but very hard to actually do. We may have overlooked or attempted to explain away some of the harm we've done from day to day, but eventually we must come to grips with it. We can't continue to self-justify, because this works against our conscience, however deeply we may attempt to bury it. And if we continue to go against our conscience we will ultimately kill our own Essence. A huge amount of progress depends on this continual honesty and willingness to acknowledge when we are in the wrong.
As the AA Big Book points out, it's no good just mumbling an apology; we actually have to make amends. That could mean writing to the person we've harmed and asking them to forgive us; it could involve phoning them, or meeting them face to face, and spelling out our apology, asking them how we may make amends for the harm we've done.
Sometimes we can't contact people we've hurt. They may have moved and not left a forwarding address, or they may have died, or have cut themselves off from us because of the way we have hurt them. And it could be that to contact them might do more harm than good. If, for example, we have had an affair with a married person and harmed their spouse, then to apologize to the spouse for the harm we've caused them and their marriage could very well bring up painful and angry feelings for the injured person, and this will not help to make amends.
In such cases we still need to make amends in some way, however, and perhaps the best way is to stop the behaviour that has caused the damage, while holding ourselves ready to apologize if the injured person should get in touch with us.
When someone has died we need to pray for them, and when it's someone we've harmed we can ask God to heal them and us, and bring about reconciliation in the spiritual realm.
But there is to be no dodging of this responsibility. If the person to whom we need to make amends is at all available, we are obliged to do all we can to show them our sincere regret and make them a full and frank apology for what we have done.
As the Big Book also points out, making an inventory and seeing where we have gone wrong is not about the harm others have done to us. In previous posts we've seen how important it is to forgive, but here we are considering how we ourselves need to be forgiven. We clean up our own side of the street, and leave the rest to our Higher Power.
Then, in the next phase of the cosmic cycle, we will be ready to start again, with fresh energy and in a determined spirit.
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