Matthew 23:37 · World English Bible
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!
Love is never the one who withholds; it stands always offering shelter, and the only thing that keeps a mind exposed is its own unwillingness to be gathered. The grief in this call is not love's failure but love's patience meeting a refusal, for the wing is spread and the mind will not come under it.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Love is never the one who withholds; it stands always offering shelter, and the only thing that keeps a mind exposed is its own unwillingness to be gathered. The grief in this call is not love's failure but love's patience meeting a refusal, for the wing is spread and the mind will not come under it.
What stones the messengers is the same fear that will not be gathered, the belief that safety lies in standing apart. Nothing bars the mind from peace except its own choice to remain outside it. The offer does not weaken or withdraw; it simply waits, spread wide, until the day the mind is at last willing to accept the shelter that was never once taken away.
Jerusalem: the mind that has silenced its own inner teaching, the dwelling place of peace turned against the peace it was built to hold. The prophets: the messengers of truth the mind stones and refuses, the gentle correction it attacks to keep its fear. The hen and her wings: the sheltering presence of love, ever spread and offering safety, waiting only for the mind's willingness to come under it. The chickens: the scattered thoughts of a divided mind, longing to be gathered into the wholeness they fear to accept.
Christian Psychology lens
What has been offered to me for a long time that I keep standing just outside of?
Water never forces its way, yet nothing resists it for long. The gentlest thing is always available, and only a hardened thing refuses it.
The beloved is never the one who left. You spent years knocking at a door that was open the whole time, and the knocking was the only thing between you and the room.
Kindness is already pouring toward you from every direction. Suffering continues only as long as the heart keeps its armor on, insisting that safety means staying unreachable.
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Christian Psychology