Today, I am inspired by my friend, Shauna Pilgreen and her most recent blog post entitled Two Opposing Stories.
Of note in Shauna’s writing is that there is space to love in between the division, in spite of opposing views and because loving is what we’ve been called to do.
I’m not suggesting that we patronize or look over another’s views/actions that seem to violate our principles as ones loved by God and the spiritual realm of the universe.
Instead, I’m proposing that we seek the opportunity to know someone, hard as it may be, in their opposition and love them anyway...love them because we were first loved by Jesus who sees not our “political” views but our hearts and intentions.
There are miles to go in the telling of opposing stories. I have stories to share...Narrative changes that started 15+ years ago and are still evolving.
What has been so brash in 2020 is discovering narratives of ones I love that have not seemed to fit the call of Love. No wonder.
There is little sense to be made unless you know the/their story, and that is often a challenge. So many of us live a story constrained by conditions, legalism and years of abiding by so-called rules. These man-made, religious checkboxes have roped many of us into feeling comfortable in a very old narrative that does not consider or respect the opposition or the differing opinions.
Some are stubborn in their ways for no reason other than they do not know another way. Many of us have refused to remove blinders, or thoughtfully consider another’s logic. We live uneducated... perhaps as a result of privilege, poverty and politics.
I will certainly own the lame excuse of my naïveté, self-imposed lack of education and laziness to learn... That is in the past...or, more accurately, I am working on it... learning tools to leave the socially enmeshed, tangled narratives of “self” in the past.
Speaking of narratives and stories, our great default and potential demise lurks in our living the story of self.
Friar Richard Rohr recently discussed the “small-self”, the grandiose ego and selfish act of living “My Story” instead of the divine call to live “The Story” and “Our Story.”
In his meditation, “My Story,” he explores the small-self and the risk of excluding others in preference to our own self. He suggests that in doing so we miss out on the very point of living.
In my opinion, letting go of the small self, the “I, me, mine” and our own spotlight story is the pathway to kindness and love.
The concept of “story” and Rohr’s description immediately resonated with me and pushed to the top the divine and critical component of living a life of loving kindness.
“However, when we are able to move beyond the small or “false self”—at the right time and in the right way—it will feel precisely as if we have lost nothing. In fact, it will feel like freedom and liberation. When we are connected to Our Story and The Story and not just My Story, we no longer need to protect or defend the mere part. We are now connected to something expansive and inexhaustible; and we can become a useful and contributing citizen in both this world and the reign of God.” -Fr. Richard Rohr
My heart’s desire is to move toward the Love Narrative... the one that Jesus has so freely given... the one that is spirit-filled, built in and on the heart of Love, with no constraints, no conditions other than pure Love.
We are works in progress. God help us to keep walking, take the next right step and continue to thrust forward even when our feet drag, our hearts ache and our pace slows to a crawl thwarting our very purpose... which is to love.
Together is better.
True.
However, In order to be better together, there must be room for Love to always rise to the top.
Love must be the very reason that together is better. There is no other way forward, only the light of love can pierce the darkness.