You are the Beloved

It is now the holiday break before Fuller's winter quarter begins. Reading Nouwen's Life of the Beloved. What a joy to spend this time of year reflecting on this truth - a truth that is no less profound as it is simple.

BEING THE BELOVED is how this gift from Nouwen begins, a response to a request from his friend that he speaks of this God he so loves from his heart in terms anyone can understand. And I am captured by the weight of all that he wants to say to this friend: You are the Beloved. To be heard with all the tenderness and force that love can hold, the words that ought to reverberate "in every corner" of our beings - we are the Beloved. I struggle to imagine that this is something anyone can understand, if you can grasp the irony of this truth. It is so often far beyond what we can comprehend or dare believe.

Are we? The Beloved, you say?

Every corner of our beings is stricken with an unshakeable need to be loved, a need so deprived even by ourselves. Deprivation, starvation, malnourishment. We're constantly feeding on the prove-yourself-worthy diet because what we see when we look at our reflection is "I'm never good enough, beautiful enough, loveable enough, capable enough, strong enough." Everything we do that brings no satisfaction we seem to keep doing as though we can find fulfillment when we try often and try hard. Isn't it so true that beneath it all, our facade, our facemasks, we cover something so subtle and pervasive we cannot recognize it? Self-rejection in all its darkened glory, staring us in the face. Staring that comes from the eyes of those from whom we feel disapproval, disappointment, discontentment. Whether it is truly them or the self-condescending, self-deprecating voice within ourselves.

This is something so basic that really hit me as I read on: I could be an arrogant prick or someone you label as having low self-esteem - both are only indicators of what truly lies beneath. Self-rejection. How so? It manifests itself in both ways, doesn't it? We often say that pride, greed, popularity, fame, lust, or power are  problems we must deal with. But how are these seductive to one who has no need to prove him or herself worthy? Are these not trappings for the one who thinks these are solutions for the inadequacy he/she feels? So we put ourselves higher than others so people cannot see how we really are inside. Or we put ourselves so low people cannot criticize us anymore than we already do ourselves. We run from that whisper to know we are Beloved. We don't hear it amidst our self-creation, self-dependence, self-sufficiency. Self-protection. But it's really self-rejection. We reject that we can just be who we are, no more and no less.

For today, this chapter suffices. Something our malnourished beings need to chew on and digest, that is far more enriching than that diet of unworthiness we feed ourselves: You are the Beloved. Regardless of your success or failure, your past or present. A Belovedness that began even before you were born, to be perfected for eternity when death's final blow beseeches you home to your Belover. And I love the way Nouwen phrases it for our practice, that our giving to each other the gift of our Belovedness is what we should be about. Inasmuch as I have been able to claim this Belovedness for myself only am I able to give that gift to others. I definitely need to practice this...so help me, God.