|  |     A very powerful statement Patrick, thank you, one I've been deeply
    contemplating for some time.  This is how I think of it to myself:
    
    A key aspect of my life is to learn how to suffer (to fully bear 
    both the joys and sorrows of life) and in order to do so it will 
    involve a death each time.  Sometimes a little death, sometimes a 
    great death.  Sometimes met with grief, other times with celebration.
    But what transforms these deaths from a profane event into a sacred 
    experience is the condition of willingness I hold in my heart in the
    face of each.  
     
    We may imitate Christ in taking what we feel would the steps He would
    take to have this experience, but in the moment when it actually happens, 
    we are no longer imitating, but embodying Christ, evoking the light of 
    God from within, igniting the divine spark into a flame - burns but
    does not consume - it takes over and delivers us.  We are re-born.
                                                       
    When I hear the phrase "take up the cross daily" to me it means being
    willing to make every day a sacred day - to be willing to sacrfice my 
    little self in order to be re-born into a greater and the Greater Self.
    
    Karen
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|  |     Amen, Karen and just to add my $.02, part of that daily suffering may
    mean having to endure friends turning their backs on you and people
    talking about you as well.  But compared to the suffering that Christ
    endured for us, what's a little humiliation...
    
    YBIC ( Your Brother in Christ )
    
    Vernon
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