Monday 9 June 2008

This week begins with a move into a deeper look at our "false self." Thomas Merton.

Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self.
This is the person I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him/her. And to be unknown of God is altogether too much privacy.
My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God's will and God's love - outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self cannot help but be an illusion.

This person cannot exist because God does not know anything about him/her. What a powerful word. The person God created as me...as you, has a future that is within God's Reign that become the unfolding of our present person - beloved of God. Whenever we attempt to put some other image of self on the table - someone other than the beloved of God - we must remember that it is someone build on an illusion. It is a person built on what we would make and what we would like to see be our reality. And yet, as Merton notes, this is a false self...an illusory person. We build this person out of many images and dreams and attempts to fashion our lives into the lives of gods. When we go there...we move away from our God who really knows us at the very heart of what God has called beloved. What we build will whither...like the grass. What God makes of us is firm and full of potential and will not wither or decay. The spirit of life that God sends to help us unfold as God's beloved - as God sees us - will see to the integrity of our being no matter what the situation at hand presents to us. No illusion...just the reality of God's knowledge of us as God's own.

Connection: We are continuously called into a position of vulnerability so that the power of our God to make us whole will be seen by us. How does one face up to our own illusions...and who will be the people around us that will help us see through the mist of those illusions.

Living Lord, you are the stream of life that flows eternally through our lives. You are the water that refreshes us so that we will again and again be drawn to your life-giving presence that continues to make us into your beloved. We give you thanks. Amen.