Good morning…
Until we look inside ourselves, to the very marrow of our God-drenched soul, we look for love in all the wrong places. People. Political and religious leaders. Paycheck after paycheck, we search for deeper meaning. Sue Monk Kidd says it this way.
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Excerpt from When The Heart Waits
Without maps or signposts, people search for their inner home in the wrong places: in professional success, material status, institutions, persons, pleasures, and on and on. But none of these can ever be home. We end up spiritual refugees.
One day, while I was working in a homeless shelter in Atlanta, a homeless man said to me, “People have one of two reactions when they see me on the street. They either ignore me or despise me.”
“Why do you think that is?” I asked him.
He turned his pained, watery eyes on me and said, “Because they see themselves, of course.”
Of course. We see in this group of wandering souls the condition of our own spiritual homelessness, and we either despise them for showing it to us or we ignore them so that we don’t have to be reminded of it. (90)
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The beauty of looking, really looking into the eye of those disdained and disenfranchised by our society, is that we see: “They have broken wings, just like me. If God is loving them into deeper and fuller wholeness, might God be growing strong in my weak places?”
I will always love knowing that in greek the root word for salvation means wholeness. Jesus comes to save the disdained and disenfranchised part of our True Self. While on earth Jesus showed concern for each whole person. His compassion resulted in the alleviation of each person’s deepest need, whether it was hunger, disease, or falseness of self. Seeking and saving all of us caught in the divisive forces of evil, the living Christ is now concerned for the wholeness of our human personality as well along with the wholeness of our collective community. Over time and in God’s way, Christ is loving into wholeness every single part of us. Jesus said to her, “Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed of your plague” (Mark 5:34, MSG).
…Sue…
