From PARADOXES OF GROUP LIFE: The paradox of Regression

“When individuals join a group ..., they are approaching experiences that are unfamiliar. They attempt to create some structure for thinking and acting that will enable them to manage the joining process. The available structures that an individual can draw upon come from his or her personal history. Each person will bring into this new joining process an approach (or set of approaches) from past encounters with groups and will use this as a guide for managing the unfamiliarity of the new setting. At a surface level, the ease with which this joining takes place will depend in large part on how similar the present situation is to past experiences and how accurately the individual delineates what overlaps with the past and what is unique.” (p. 125,126)

“The paradox of regression is that in order not to be in a regressed state, one has to be willing to regress.” (p. 127)

Richard Rohr: Falling Upward: those who have fallen down are the only ones who understand “up": “We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right.” “I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.” (quoted by Howard, 21/6/21)

INDEED, you are UNABLE to get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.

“If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.” (Matthew 18:12,13)

“Behold, you will rest with your fathers; and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.” Deuteronomy 31:16

Divine Providence, 278. (2) Evils cannot be removed unless they appear. We do not mean that a person has to commit evils in order for them to appear, but that he must examine himself, not only his deeds, but also his thoughts, and what he would do if he did not fear the laws and disgrace - especially what evils he makes in his spirit allowable and does not regard as sins, for these he continues to do.

To enable a person to examine himself, he has been given an intellect, and this separate from his will, in order that he may know, understand and acknowledge what is good and what is evil, and may also see the character of his will, or what he loves and what he desires. For a person to see this, his intellect has been endowed with a higher and lower thought, or an inner and outer thought, that from the higher or inner thought he may see what his will is doing in the lower or outer thought. He sees this as someone sees his face in a mirror, and when he does, and knows what sin is, he can, if he implores the Lord's aid, stop willing it, refrain from it, and subsequently behave contrary to it. If he cannot do this readily, still he can overcome it through struggle, and at last become averse to it and abhor it. Moreover, for the first time then he perceives and also feels that evil is evil and good good, and not before.

This, now, is what it is to examine oneself, to see one's evils and acknowledge them, to confess them, and afterward to desist from them.

Recorded on Sunday 4th July 2021.