Care to discuss Sgt B's latest? My thoughts in
<pink. Feel free to ignore or disagree.
‘First quality: you are capable of great things, but you must never forget that there is a hand guiding your steps. We call that hand God, and He always guides us according to His will.’
<Remember that God guides us according to His will
<But we have free will!
<And if God were 100% guiding us, then it would not be necessary to use the eraser to rub out mistakes!
<If mistakes happen that need erasing, don't blame God for them!
<We CAN let God guide us and get in tune with God's plan, but not everybody is guided by God.
<But God uses bad men and good men to accomplish his purposes. (e.g. Nebuchadnezzar in the Bible)
‘Second quality: now and then, I have to stop writing and use a sharpner. That makes the pencil suffer a little, but afterwards, he’s much sharper. So you, too, must learn to bear certain pains and sorrows, because they will make you a better person.
<Bearing pains and sorrows will make you a better person
<Why people have to suffer, in order to learn and grow, and to play a role in God's plan, which may involve things that need to happen to others so THEY in turn can learn and grow.
‘Third quality: the pencil always allows us to use an eraser to rub out any mistakes. This means that correcting something we did is not necessarily a bad thing; it helps to keep us on the road to justice.’
<Correcting something we did helps keep us on the road to justice
<Acknowledge mistakes, correct them, move on
<Justice for ourselves, or justice for others?
<A path that will deliver justice is not necessarily a straight line path. It may have wrong turns that get solved. Keep reorienting yourself according to a compass point called Justice.
<Secondary: ]we[ are on the road to justice but ]we[ had to change the plan in order to get there?
‘Fourth quality: what really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.’
<We should introspect.
<A person's spirit and character are of more significance than their physical exterior. The spirit is more significant than the meat-wrapper it is wearing.
‘Finally, the pencil’s fifth quality: it always leaves a mark. in just the same way, you should know that everything you do in life will leave a mark, so try to be conscious of that in your every action”
<Be aware that your actions in life leave a mark
<A mark on you. A mark on others. A mark on the environment. A mark on the timeline.
<Contradicts eraser maxim?
<Secondary: Understand karma. Action and reaction. Cause and effect. Indelible upon the akashic record.
<Even though you made a mistake and "erased" it by making a difference choice, the timeline in which that mistake occurred still exists.