More on "integrity" - Thomas Merton.
There can be an intense egoism in following everybody else. People are in a hurry to magnify themselves by imitating what is popular - and too lazy to think of anything better.
Hurry ruins saints as well as artists. they want quick success and they are in such haste to get it that they cannot take time to be true to themselves. And when the madness is upon them they argue that their very haste is a species of integrity.
Isn't this what commercialism is all about?...convincing people that we all need the same kind of life and material goods with which we will move through life? Therefore, there are fashions that come and go and we are told that we will be somebody if we take part in this essential coming and going of mere fashion. When this is the case, the somebody I become is simply a part of the everybody around me. Do we lose ourselves as we enter into that pursuit? To a point....yes. But we must consider how many ways outside of fashion that we lose ourselves through imitation as we search to be someone. Our God has made us each to be unique. That is the blessedness of each of our lives. We are invited to trust that move by our God!
Connection: It may not be easy to come to grips with who each of us is when we are so used to being seduced by the forces around us. We can be a part of a community without being consumed by the community.
When you create us, O God, we are each a part of a wonderful mural. In that picture, none of us is to be lost in the vastness of the project. Rather, we need to be reminded by your Spirit that as we become the person you created, the whole mural becomes more brilliant. Amen.
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