"Just as white light consists of colored rays, so reverence for life contains all the components of ethics: love, kindliness, sympathy, empathy, peacefulness and power to forgive." ~Albert Schweitzer

Reverence is more than bowed heads, bent knees, and hushed voices. And it's beyond respect. Reverence includes all the components of ethics and more, such as awe and wonder. 

At last weekend's Twelve Gift for Living Retreat in Scottsdale, Arizona, after opening our minds and hearts to the gift of hope, we moved into an activity that leads to experiencing reverence. It's called "soul gazing."

Soul gazing first calls for courage and compassion because it involves bravely looking into another person's eyes in a loving way while holding hands. The degree of reverence experienced may be slight or it may be deep. Either way, it is a something wholesome and holy.

Let's aim to see someone or something with reverence today. It may be a loved one, a pet, a wild animal, a flower, a tree, or anything else in nature. It can be looking into a mirror with courage and compassion to see ourselves with reverence.

However we do this today, let's bring reverence into this day for ourselves and for the world. 

Can you imagine how the world would change if we practiced seeing with reverence every day?

For peace,
Charlene

THE NINTH GIFT IS REVERENCE. May you appreciate the wonder that you are and the miracle of all creation. - from The Twelve Gifts of Birth