I recently had a bad day: one where I forgot about my own inner spaciousness, my own divine nature. I did something that offended some other divine/human beings. I apologized and really delved into my own mistake, because I don't want to do it again. I really, really don't.
Jesus had days like that -- remember the day he cursed the fig tree so that it never bore fruit? He cursed it because it had no figs on it -- even though it was out of season for figs! And of course, he had a meltdown in the temple. Instead of responding to the money-changers with love, he became angry and turned over their tables and raised all sorts of noise and upset.
I think the point of these stories is, regardless of who we are, we have those completely human moments or days when we forget that it is all about love. Even when we are "spiritual leaders" or "fishers of men" we "fall off the pedestal" (which is a very narrow place to stand) and sometimes forget to check our words and actions with our innermost being. If we are very lucky, or if we really do want to expand spiritually, we remember to do it at some point, learn the lessons that always come with these mistakes, and next time we are hungry, angry, lonely or tired, we have a better chance of not reacting from our anger, but instead responding from love.
Can we ask more than that of others? I think we're all doing the best we can at the moment and that when we are open to learning from our mistakes we get a new "best we can" -- we learn to do better than our old "best." That's spiritual growth. Sometimes we do it in public; sometimes we do it only in the privacy of meditation. Whatever way we do it, doing it is the important thing. Isn't that why we are here?
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