Where is the Love?

The only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own false self, and enter by love into union with the Life Who dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our own souls. In His love we possess all things and enjoy fruition of them, finding Him in them all.

~Richard Rohr

Someone asked me recently why it is so hard to have open conversations with other people without being in conflict. In another setting, the question was what is racism and why won't it go away?

Why are we so polarized as a nation of people founded on the principles of democracy, equality and freedom? Some people say we are a Christian nation which means we love the Lord our God with all our heart and love our neighbors as ourselves. But we cannot talk to each other about much of anything else except the weather!

Why is it so hard?

As with so many of the questions about life, I believe Richard Rohr answers this dilemma in the statement above. WE MUST ESCAPE THE PRISON OF OUR OWN FALSE SELVES! That's the first step and in order to do that, we must identify that false self. Then we must break the chains of the prison it has created within us.

If we were created in the Imago Dei - the Image of God- anything we do or say or think or imagine that is not in union with that "Life Who dwells and sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our own souls" is part of our false self.

My homework for today is to start my list. False self = envy, jealousy, fear of failure....and the list goes on and on.

Tomorrow let's look through the lens of the True Self and how that might allow us to talk across our differences more peacefully. Perhaps the first step in that process should be to identify people who wear the lens of the True Self, who are in union with the "Life who dwells and sings within the essence of every creature!"