Sometimes we can feel as if we don't belong anywhere. We're constantly trying to "get" others - including God - to like us. We're not even sure we like ourselves. We don't know if our existence matters.
This feeling "out of touch" with ourselves can go all the way back to our infancy and the way in which we "saw" ourselves in our parent's/caregiver's gaze. Looking into their eyes as they looked into ours, what did we see? Did we see ourselves mirrored in their eyes as they looked at us with enjoyment and delight? Did we see love? If we did, we immediately began to feel loved and worthwhile. If we didn't see love, our lives and our ability to feel welcome, to feel as if we belonged in this world, immediately became more difficult. Unless we feel loved, feel as if we "belong," It's difficult to trust ourselves, or trust others in order to form loving relationships with them, or even to trust God.
Perhaps the greatest miracle in our lives, then, happens when someone else looks on us with eyes of love and delight, with a welcoming, accepting gaze that either reinforces the love our parents'/caregiver's gaze gave us, or else gives us that tremendous sense of being loved and belonging for the very first time. Whenever we are loved by another, see ourselves afresh in another's eyes, we begin to have that precious sense of belonging in this world. Welcomed by the gaze of another, we begin to have the capacity to realize how God sees us, how God looks upon us with a loving gaze that welcomes us and tells us we belong - to God and to all of creation. This love floods our entire being - our minds, our hearts, our souls, our bodies.
God's Love, God's Presence gives us a sense of radical belonging - because we come from God and we will go to God. Belonging to God isn't something that happens when we find God, find God's loving gaze. We are totally in the Presence of God and we totally belong to God from the moment He creates us and chooses to live in our souls. But we can't rest in the joy of His Presence until we choose to become aware of our souls, aware of Him dwelling there within us - because God wants to be there. "Only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, more than we are, and less then we are." (Fr. Richard Rohr)
James Finley says, "When God gazes at us and we gaze at God we light up. . . . And God lights up with joy (at) being recognized by the one that God created in God’s own image and likeness for the very sake of this recognition. It’s a state of visceral, emotional, intimate communion; a tender recognition of oneness that we might rest in it, resting in us . . . resting in this communion in each other, as each other, through each other, beyond each other in this endless interconnectedness of life itself, of love."
Don't you love that expression - when God gazes at us and we gaze at God, we light up! Nothing is more wonderful than seeing someone's face light up when he/she sees us. And that loving gaze makes us light up inside with a warm glow. God is like that wonderful host at a party who comes up to us, lights up when he sees us, says "Glad you could come," and then hands us everything God has created "on a plate" - for us to enjoy and take delight in. God's light of love sets us on fire so we can glow like a comfortable fireplace as we appreciate all that He gives us. Nature - food and drink for our bodies and for our souls. People - an endless array of fascinating personalities with intriguing stories to tell us if we'll only listen. And when we've discovered our souls and discovered God living there within us, we can begin to see God and "soul" everywhere, in everyone, and everything.
"I think of soul as anything’s ultimate meaning which is held within. Soul is the blueprint inside of every living thing that tells it what it is and what it can become. When we meet anything at that level, we will respect, protect, and love it." (Rohr)
And God is the unique Host Who hands us Himself "on a plate" to nourish us - "I AM the Bread of Life; I AM Living Water; I AM Honey from a Rock...."
Resting in God's loving gaze confronts us with the only Power that ultimately matters in our life - the Power of God's Love which tells us that we belong in this world, we matter, our identity matters. We can be free to enjoy who we are! We didn't make our souls, we can't control our souls, we can only grow them up. And because God loves us, we can feel free and safe to truly look at ourselves - and change. Grow. Admit with humility what we aren't. Accept with humility and enjoyment who we are and who we can become. We can safely confront our own woundedness and say to God and ourselves, "I did it again - I still don't know how to love." God our Host leads us to the room where the rest of His family and our family is gathered, and we discover that, in reality, the Church is a Hospital for the Wounded and Broken, those who believe they can be healed by Christ and are willing to grow up to be Wounded Healers for others. Fr. Richard Rohr challenges us,
“Great people do not need to concoct an identity for themselves; they merely try to discover, uncover, and enjoy the identity they already have. As (St.) Francis said to us right before he died in 1226, “I have done what was mine to do. Now you must do what is yours to do.” Yet to just be yourself, who you really are, warts and all, feels like too little, a disappointment, a step backward into ordinariness.... It sounds much more exciting to pretend I am St. Francis than accepting that I am Richard and that that is all God expects me to be—and everything that God expects me to be. My destiny and his desire are already written in my genes, my upbringing, and my natural gifts. It is probably the most courageous thing you will ever do to accept that you are just yourself. It will take perfect faith, the blind yes of Mary, because it is the ongoing and same incarnation. Just like the word of God descending into one little whimpering child, in one small stable, in one moment, in one unimportant country, noticed by nobody."
― Richard Rohr, Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation
The light of God's gaze rests upon you to set you alight. And God speaks to you, intimately, with words meant just for you: "Don't forget to be yourself. If you gaze back into My Eyes, you will see yourself reflected there - everything you are, everything you are not, everything you can become. And the self you are belongs - belongs to Me and belongs Here, in this time, this place. You matter. You infinitely matter. I enjoy you! I delight in you. Enjoy yourself as I enjoy you! I trust you to use the personality and gifts that I've given you to make a difference in this world. The strength of My love for you will give you the strength to keep growing and changing, all of your life. Just don't give up. Listen always to My Voice. I have done what is mine to do. Now you must do what is yours to do."