The idea of repentance gives me the heebie jeebies—it comes from Latin, the idea of regret, or to be sorry, and we hear it in the context of Christianity that we need to repent for our sins. But I LOVED how Cynthia Bourgeault turns this on its head in the wonderful THE WISDOM JESUS. She writes: "The Greek that it's translating is metanoia. And guess what? It doesn't mean feeling sorry for yourself for doing bad things. It doesn't even mean to "change the direction in which you're looking for happiness," although it's often translated that way. The word literally breaks down into meta and noia, which, depending on how you translate meta (it can be either the preposition "beyond" or the adjective "large"), means "go beyond the mind" or "go into the large mind." The repentance that Jesus really is talking about means to go beyond your little egoic operating system that says, "I think, therefore I am," and try out the other one--the big one--that says, "I am, therefore I think." I LOVE this idea—a beckoning not to prostrate ourselves for being bad (we're not), but to let go of our binary duality and put on a bigger consciousness, get above it all if that makes sense. #wordswithelise #cynthiabourgeault #wisdomjesus