{"id":19943,"date":"2021-03-17T11:33:41","date_gmt":"2021-03-17T15:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19943"},"modified":"2021-03-17T11:33:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-17T15:33:41","slug":"loving-the-true-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19943","title":{"rendered":"Loving the \u201cTrue You\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dcyAr915qdA\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n<p><em>I very much enjoyed my time\nwith Bishop Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, when\nwe worked together on the Reclaiming Jesus project and when I had dinner at his\nhouse in New York City. He reminds us why we must accept God\u2019s love for us\nbefore we can love another: <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve come to see that the call of God, the\nlove that bids us welcome, is always a call to become the true you. Not a\ndoormat. The true you. Not an imitation of someone else. The true you: someone\nmade in the image of God, deserving of and receiving love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a Jewish proverb, \u201cBefore every\nperson there marches an angel proclaiming, \u2018Behold, the image of God.\u2019\u201d\nUnselfish, sacrificial living isn\u2019t about ignoring or denying or destroying\nyourself. It\u2019s about discovering your true self\u2014the self that looks like\nGod\u2014and living life from that grounding. Many people are familiar with a part\nof Jesus\u2019s summary of the law of Moses: You shall love your neighbor as you\nlove yourself [Mark 12:31]. <em>Yourself.\n<\/em>Loving the self is a required balance. If we fail in that, we fail\nour neighbor, too. To love your neighbor is to relate to them as someone made\nin the image of God. And it is to relate to <em>yourself<\/em>\nas someone made in the image of God. It\u2019s God, up, down, and all around, and\nGod is love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Sometimes we can only recognize God\u2019s love for\nus through the love we receive from another person (whom God has loved well).\nThe important part is that the flow of love gets started. Bishop Curry\ncontinues:<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ability to love yourself is intimately\nrelated to your capacity to love others. The challenge is creating a life that\nallows you to fulfill both needs. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve seen it happen enough times to be\nconfident in saying it. Perhaps loving others saves us from the confusion, the\nfrustration, and ultimately the neurosis that comes when we try to center the\nworld around ourselves. Or perhaps it allows us to step outside the self enough\nto see ourselves with some distance, for a better perspective on what\u2019s\nmissing. Or maybe when loving ourselves is hard, practicing loving others\nstrengthens the muscle enough to turn the force inward. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Love is a commitment to seek the good and to\nwork for the good and welfare of others. It doesn\u2019t stop at our front door or\nour neighborhood, our religion or race, or our state\u2019s or your country\u2019s\nborder. This is one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth,\nas the hymn goes. It often calls us to step outside of what we thought our\nboundaries were, or what others expect of us. It calls for us to sacrifice, not\nbecause doing so feels good, but because it\u2019s the right thing to do. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>God\u2019s love is\neverywhere, in all things, and that includes you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I very much enjoyed my time with Bishop Michael Curry, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, when we worked together on the Reclaiming Jesus project and when I had dinner at his house in New York City. He reminds us why we must accept God\u2019s love for us before we can love another: I\u2019ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19943"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19943"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19944,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19943\/revisions\/19944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}