Reflection for Today ▶️ ⏩ ⏹️
The Brightness, chalk pastel, by Tobias Mayer, 2022
And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:
— 2 Thessalonians 2:8
Following on from yesterdays reflection, which concluded with a sense of hopelessness, here we have hope. Let's not passively sit around waiting for Jesus to return and fix everything. Our greatest collective sin is perhaps inaction. By channeling God, each one of us, we can begin to make the changes necessary to bring the day of the Lord into being. The spirit of his mouth is the spirit of all our mouths, it is the words we speak. The Word was there before anything,1 the Word has immense power and we must use it carefully and wisely, we must use it impeccably.2 Slander, gossip, abuse, insults, unkindness, mockery, disdain, all these have no place in our communication, whether spoken or written. We do well to even avoid the thought of such expression. The word spoken or written hurts many, the word thought hurts only ourselves, but a hurt self becomes a self-obsessed self, inarticulate, unable to show up for others, and ultimately resorting to cruelty. Hurt people hurt people.
We the people can pave the way for the day of the Lord, through the impeccable use of our words and through radiating warmth and light, peace and goodwill to those we come into contact with. God dwells in all of of us and we must all be active contributors to overcome the systemic evil, the state of perdition we currently live within.
1 In the beginning was the Word, the Gospel of John 1:1,
2 "Be impeccable with your word" is the first agreement in Toltec wisdom, as described in The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, 1997