From Fear to Serenity with Anthony de Mello

People stay largely as they are, but what does change is the way they see things. They view the world and themselves with eyes full of wonder; they see everything in a freer and more detached way. Fear is part of the human condition and is never permanently uprooted or eradicated. Yet we can choose not to let it dictate the agenda of our lives.

He told the story of a known sinner who was excommunicated and banned from entering the church. In desperation the man turned to God. “Lord, they won’t allow me in because I’m a sinner.” “What are you moaning about?” God replied. “They won’t let me in either!”

One day his own son tried to pry the secret from him, and in a rare moment of candor, the father shared his feelings. “I felt like a fool,” he said. “Why?” asked the son. “Because,” the father replied, “it was like going to enormous trouble to enter a house by climbing a ladder and breaking the window, only to realize afterwards that the front door

Although the journey into ourselves and to God can often take a long time, in many ways it is a journey without distance, because we travel from where we are now to where we have, in fact, always been. We have been standing in front of something wonderful all our lives but have never noticed it.