small self, true self

The small self takes one side or the other in order to feel secure. It frames reality in a binary way: for me or against me, totally right or totally wrong, my group’s opinion or another group’s—all dualistic formulations….That is the best the small egotistical self can do, yet it is not anywhere close to adequate. It might be an early level of intelligence, but it is not mature wisdom. The small self is still objectively in union with God, it just does not know it, enjoy it, or draw upon it.

Either you allow Holy Scriptures to change you, or you will normally try to use it to change--and clobber--other people. It is the height of idolatry to use the supposed Word of God so that my small self can be in control and be right.

                                                                        Richard Rohr

___________________________________

It is a problem

When we walk through our day scared

In an adversarial, transaction world

Where it is all black and white

Right or wrong

Win or lose

This is the perspective of the isolated self

The small self

Which somehow has forgotten its connection

to the amazing presence of Sacred

to the power of love

this self feels alone

vulnerable

and hungry

as it searches to fill

dark voids within

and combat the hungry ghosts that linger

those inner threats that threaten to destroy from within

and searches to combat the threats from within

Frightened the small self seeks to align itself

With others

It gathers with other fearful small selves

Into an unholy alliance

Pulled together by hate, perhaps

Or greed

A resentful and retributive tribe

It gathers with other small selves

And cheers power and even brutality

On the playgrounds

In the streets

In auditoriums filled with political banners

Feeding off small egos (that paradoxically present as big) seeking power

It gathers with other small selves

In churches

Seeking good things, such as safety and wisdom

Seeking change

Sometimes it is hard to find

The small self is fierce and protective

Too protective to let even the Sacred in

through the cracks and fissures of a crumbling soul

Sometimes what should change and transform

What should soften and open

Does not

And becomes another tool in the arsenal of the tribe

The scriptures, instead of being the living and powerful

“God’s word to us”

Become dead words on a page

Twisted and tormented by the small self

And used to justify the unjustifiable

to prop up the small self

to keep out those who are not in “our tribe”

to make others less (so that “we” might feel more)

Ah Sacred One

You are always lurking in our souls

You are always hanging around

Ready to breach our defenses

And transform

Ready to take that small self

And free it from its bonds, so that the true self

The created to be self

Can flourish

And we can once again reflect our Sacred DNA

You are always there

Even when we don’t know it

Even when we don’t show it

Jesus came to set the prisoner free

Yes, there are many who need to be set free

Immigrants in camps

People imprisoned by poverty

And illness

And mental illness

Trapped by addiction

But I am also one who needs to be set free

To set others free, we must start with ourselves

Jesus came to transform

To free us so that we do not have to be

Protective, fearful, and small

So that we “will no longer be infants,

tossed about by the waves

and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men

in their deceitful scheming.

[But] instead, speaking the truth in love,

we will in all things grow up into Christ Himself

Help us grow up Lord

Help us be people who want to be love

More than we want to be right

Who want to be changed

More than we want to control and change others

Help us truly be

Sacred Children

Our true selves