not an imitation

 

 

 

 

I’ve come to see that the call of God, the love that bids us welcome, 

is always a call to become the true you. Not a doormat. The true you.

 Not an imitation of someone else. The true you:

 someone made in the image of God, 

deserving of and receiving love.

 

There is a Jewish proverb, 

“Before every person there marches an angel proclaiming, 

‘Behold, the image of God.’”

 

 Unselfish, sacrificial living isn’t about ignoring or denying or destroying yourself.

 It’s about discovering your true self—the self that looks like God—

and living life from that grounding. 

 

Many people are familiar with a part of Jesus’s summary of the law of Moses:

 You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.

 

 Yourself. Loving the self is a required balance.

 If we fail in that, we fail our neighbor, too. 

 

To love your neighbor is to relate to them as someone made in the image of God.

 And it is to relate to yourself as someone made in the image of God.

 It’s God, up, down, and all around, and God is love.

The ability to love yourself is intimately related to your capacity to love others. 

The challenge is creating a life that allows you to fulfill both needs. . . .

 

 

 

 

 ~ Bishop Michael Curry

found here in  Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation