Recognising Our Poverty
I was speaking with a patient at hospital this week who was talking about being in a 12 Step programme. We were reflecting on the first step which was recognising our powerlessness over the thing that has us locked in addiction. As I was thinking about this conversation later, I connected it to a quote I had read in the book, ‘Blessed are the Others’ by Andrew DeCort in which he leads readers in reflections based around the beatitudes and living in a Beatitudinal Way.
The quote says, ‘And perhaps only the pain of our poverty—when faced with the promise that we’re unconditionally loved by our Parent precisely when we have nothing to elevate us over anyone else—is powerful enough to deprogram the othering mindset, to knock us off the beaten path. This blessing reorients us into a new way of becoming humanely happy. This happiness doesn’t depend on being better than others. Its prosperity doesn’t need to be “more blessed” than anyone else. It opens us toward a shared grief. Then a gentle nonviolence. Then a restorative justice. Then an expanding compassion. Then a healing vision of God. And then a practice of just peace that can survive othering’s persecution. When we accept that we’re actually wanted by God, even when we have nothing but our cringing selves, then we have truly nothing to prove, even if everyone else is wanted too. We also have nothing to lose, even if we lose seemingly everything else for the sake of this Beatitudinal Way. Worth is compounding rather than competitive in the kingdom of heaven.’
Only when we recognise our own frailty and our belovedness can we begin to live in the way of following Jesus. It is not competitive or striving; it does not create hierarchies of sins or blessings; it is not about being more ‘right’ or ‘righteous’ than someone else. Living the way of Jesus creates a flow of love between God, us and the whole of creation. It is as simple and as difficult as that.
Take care
Helen