The boys eyed each other out of the corners of their eyes, looked at the ground, and shuffled their feet. Two minutes later, they were playing happily together again. Fascinating! A short time later, a man came to my door. He was angry. He was angry at me. Instead of becoming defensive and saying, “Oh, you shouldn’t be angry over a little thing like that,” I said, “I am so sorry. What can I do to make things right?” The man’s whole demeanor changed. When he walked away, we were friends. Why do strange, unexpected words suddenly pop into your head out of nowhere? I don’t know, but I know that they do. As the man walked away, the words that popped into my head were words I had been taught as a child in Sunday School, “But I say unto you that ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matt. 5:39). As a child, I had understood Matthew 5:39 as a puzzling and unattainable moral commandment, requiring subservience of my own needs to the needs of others. Suddenly, in a different experiential context, those same words took on an entirely new meaning. They didn’t require subservience of my own needs to the needs of others. Rather, they suggested extremely effective actions I could take on my own, which benefited both others and me. There was no self-denial in my actions. There was nothing but self-affirmation and life affirmation. I had never before felt so free, so strong, so powerful, so integrated, so fully in control. Nothing outside me changed. My living room was still there. I was still there. Our three sons were still there, playing with their toys. Only my perceptions, thoughts, actions, and emotions had changed. Suddenly, I was seeing the world through different eyes, uncontaminated by all the rules I had previously been taught.
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