Because to say to ourselves that we're not in competition with anyone anymore isn't quite true. To say to ourselves that we don't at times yearn to be better than - you name the person - isn't quite true. All of this is wishful thinking, pretending that we are no longer prey to those insecurities and envies and depressions that afflict everyone. Yes, everyone - even the greatest saint among us!
Do you know how we can be better than the person we were yesterday?
By promising to not hate ourselves. To not hate ourselves even though we still have these insecurities and envies in spite of all the other ways we've grown up. To not hate ourselves for pretending that we DON'T yearn to be better than that other someone. To not hate ourselves because, after all that praying and church-going, we're still not perfect!
Once in awhile, it doesn't hurt to kindly laugh at ourselves. Which is why I love that Stephen Sondheim classic song - "Send in the clowns. Don't bother, they're here."
We can be a better person today than we were yesterday by being compassionate towards ourselves and accepting ourselves just the way we are. We can honestly recognize that we're both amazingly wise and discouragingly foolish, heroically loving and secretly selfish, maturely self-confident and immaturely self-doubting.
I know I am a mix of wise and foolish, loving and selfish, self-confident and self-doubting, and I'm seventy-one! Just think, I still haven't got my life straight at seventy-one!
But I admit that I know it and God knows it so we can talk together about my life without pressure or game-playing or my hiding from God.
We're all complicated, neurotic, self-absorbed, and wonderful, loving human beings, on a gradual journey with God to wholeness, and we're going to get there, but it will take a lifetime. If we can't accept that truth about ourselves, then we can't accept it about anybody else.
But we constantly have these inner mouths (that need Gorilla tape!) going, nattering away at ourselves in a judgmental play-by-play of every situation as if we were the movie director of our lives. We need to detach ourselves and mentally step back from our life situations and mentally watch ourselves, listen to our real motivations, without either judgment or prideful self-pity. Once we admit what we're REALLY thinking or doing, we can quietly address this in ourselves - by loving ourselves, accepting where we are now as God does, and allowing God to love us, move us, and change us, in God's good time and God's good way.
The thing is, IF we can admit to ourselves that we're a bundle of contradictions, - and wonderful, loving human beings - and give ourselves permission to be on a gradual journey with God to wholeness - then, my friends, we can admit this about others and give THEM permission to be bundles of contradictions and wonderful, loving human beings on a gradual journey with God to wholeness too. We can stop accusing and deriding THEM for not being perfect!
This is what it means to love our neighbors as we love ourselves: gently, compassionately. This is why Jesus was so angry at the religious leaders who were ready to stone a woman to death for adultery; they were so judgmental because they had never really examined their own hearts, or been honest with themselves about their own struggles with sexual faithfulness.
Love yourself and in this way be better tomorrow than you were today. And tell yourself to go easy on the prickliest, most judgmental persons you know. Because they, poor, sad, people, haven't learned to love themselves yet.
"In and with God, I can love everything and everyone, even my enemies!"
- Fr. Richard Rohr
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