be yourself

People think that the true, the beautiful and the good exist somewhere else, in someone else.  They don’t know that they are true, beautiful, and good at their core…  Don’t go looking outside yourself anymore, because the thing you are looking for is already there within you… Don’t try to be someone else… To be beautiful means to be yourself…  If you crave acceptance and recognition and try to change yourself to fit what other people to be, you will suffer all your life.

                     Thich Nhat Hanh (The Art of Power)

____________________

 

I don’t know where it comes from,

the thought so many people have that they are “not enough”

 

but talk about a Pandemic!

so many in the people walk around convinced that they are deficit

 

perhaps the “church” has done its thing

with its grotesque theory of original sin

and its insistence that we are all broken

 

perhaps well-meaning parents

have laid a burden of inadequacy on us as children

wanting us to flourish

but motivating in a dysfunctional way

 

perhaps it was classmates

or the profoundly beautiful ones on the TV

telling us what we need to be seen as

beautiful

successful

of value

 

but the truth is

we are image-bearers

we carry the Sacred

it is woven into the fabric of how we are

 

we are things of beauty

all of us

 

it may be true that the image is blurred at times

but we are Sacred children

 

Jesus, more than anyone

knew that the secret lay within

it didn’t hurt that as he stood dripping in the Jordan

the message came

 

this is my child, and I am pleased

(how many of us need that message from both Sacred parent and Fleshly parents)

 

He was awake to

the love

the beauty

the goodness within him

 

and he touched the world powerfully

with healing, peace, hope, and love

 

I don’t know that demons plague Putin, or Trump

or all the rest of those people

who seem to need to prove themselves

but they suffer

and they make everyone around them suffer

 

hear the good news dear ones!

you are God’s beloved child

you don’t have to prove yourself

you simply have to accept yourself

a be yourself

and walk intimately with the One who loves you as you are

 

and you will find peace

and you will offer peace

in a world that so desperately needs

peace