Step away from the ego

“The ego hates losing – even to God.”     

               Richard Rohr, Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

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I wonder sometimes

As I watch the wreckage created those

Who would grasp and horde

Use and abuse

I wonder at those who would crush children for a wall

Oppress people to the degree that they cannot rise up,

And then call them lazy

Facilitate injustice

Legislate inequity

I wonder about those who call others names

Who lie

And ridicule

Whose only real gift seems to be the marginalization of others

How can they be so careless about other human beings?

How can they gorge themselves on wealth,

And simply shrug at the struggles of the working poor?

Perhaps the problem is, as both those religious and those psychological will insist

Ego

That part of our being that focus on us

Who we are, what we are, how good we are, what we need

That part of our self that separates itself from all other selves

This is me

Which then turns into

This is mine

The part of us that wants to stand apart, and thus is fiercely protective,

Often aggressive, and frequently selfish, willing to sacrifice others for its own benefit

Is powerful

Very

But sadly it is not always kind, either to ourselves, or to others

Most religions suggest that we must “die” “de-fuse”, “let go” of the self,

At least to some degree

If we are to connect meaningfully to God

For the Sacred call calls us out of isolation into communion

Our of separation into union

And the sacred knows that unless we can be one among many

We will move to places that are dark

Greedy, grasping

Abusive

Fearful

Hateful

But our egos are strong

We resist the Sacred call

And thus we end up encapsulated

Striving against the world, working against others

Thus Trump

Thus America First

Thus racism

Thus the lure of fascism

It is ego, strutting down the street in

a white power uniform, with a shield and a swastika

It is ego clamoring for a wall, and imprisoning children

Ego, shaming the poor

Ego, driving the rich to accumulate more and more, dooming others to poverty

Do we really have to deny ourselves?

Jesus would say yes

I would suggest we at least should take to heart

In this time of division, the words of Abraham Lincoln

Who also spoke in a time of division, discord, even hate

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Let us find our “better angels”