Psychologically and in principal, the precept 'Love your enemies is not self-contradictory. It is merely the extreme limit of a kind of magnanimity with which, in the shape of pitying tolerance of our oppressors, we are fairly familiar. Yet if radically followed, it would involve such a breach with our instinctive springs of action as a whole, and with the present world's arrangements, that a critical point would practically be passed, and we should be born into another kingom of being. Religioius emotion makes us feel that other kingdom to be close at hand, within our reach. (emphasis added) - William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Well, that's what the new birth is supposed to do- actually make it happen

That is right, Gail, and it is why I posted Mr. James' obsevation. It seems possible and then at times it seems sooo impossible. The answer, the solution is found I think in these words of the one who completely identified with God:

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing." - John 15:5 (KJV)

"... the faith that affected my life, the only real faith I had, was faith in perfection. But I could not have said what perfection consisted of or what its purpose might be. I tried to achieve intellectual perfection; I studied everything I could, everything that life gave me a chance to study. I tried to perfect my will and set up rules for myself that I endeavored to follow. I strove for physical perfection by doing all the exercies that develop strength and agility and by undergoing all the hardships that discipline the self in endurance and perseverance. I took all this to be perfection. The starting point of it all was, of course moral perfection, but this was soon replaced by a belief in overall perfection, that is a desire to be better in the eyes of other people. And this effort to be better in the eyes of other people was very quickly displaced by a longing to be stronger than other people, that is, more renowned, more important, wealthier than others." - Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
- Saint Paul in a letter to the Galatians 1:9-11 (NIV)

"I have come in order that you might have life - life in all its fullness ." - Jesus of Nazareth, as reported by his disciple : - John 10:10

God made a little Gentian -
It tried - to be a Rose -
And failed - and all the Summer laughed -
But just before the Snows -

There rose a Purple Creature -
That ravished all the Hill -
And Summer hid her Forehead -
And Mockery - was still -

The Frosts were her condition -
The Tyrian* would not come
Until the North - invoke it -
Creator - Shall I - bloom ? - Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), Poem #442

*Tyrian - 1513, from L. Tyrius "of Tyre," island-city in the Levant,.... Especially in ref. to Tyrian purple, a dye made there in ancient times from certain mollusks.
(Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper)

My period had come for Prayer-
No other Art - would do -
My Tactics missed a rudiment -
Creator - Was it you?

God grows above - so those who pray
Horizons - must ascend -
And so I stepped upon the North
To see this Curious Friend -

His house was not - no sign had He -
By Chimney - nor by Door
Could I infer his Residence -
Vast Prairies of Air

Unbroken by a Settler -
Were all that I could see -
Infinitude - Had'st Thou no face
That I might look on Thee?

The Silence condescended -
Creation stopped - for Me -
But awed beyond my errand -
I worshipped - did not "pray" -

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), poem #564

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. -- Paul's letter to the Romans 8:26-28, The Message

"When I do something wrong I tend to alibi, to make excuses, blame someone else. Until I can accept whatever it is that I have done, I am only widening the gap between my real and my ontological self, and I am thus excluding myself so that I begin to think that I am unforgiveable.

We need to be forgiven:

To be forgiven in this time when the fish are dying in our rivers; in this time of poison gas dumped on the ocean floor and in the less and less breathable air of our cities, of children starving; being burned to death in wars which stumble on; being attacked by rats in their cribs...

I heard a man of brilliance cry out that God has withdrawn from nations when they have turned from Him, and surely we are stiff-necked people; why should He not withdraw?

But then I remember Jonah accusing God of overlenience, of foolishness, mercy, and compassion.

We desperately need the foolishness of God." - Madeleine L'Engle (1918- ), from her autobiography, A Circle of Quiet