UGLY = U Gotta Love Yourself

UGLY = U Gotta Love Yourself. that's what an old friend once told me.

the thing is, he was kind of right. in one sense we're all ugly, and i certainly believe that we all need to love ourselves.

to the old, black, drunk woman in Illinois who called my cell phone at random one spring saturday: you said, "hon, you gotta love yourself before you can tell your momma you love her."
although i laughed that night, i think you were far more wise than i gave you credit for.

and to my good friend with whom i discussed existentialism last night: i must respectfully disagree with you (unless i’m merely misunderstanding you). i think existentialism is crucial. especially for a person of faith.

who am i? why am i here? what is this place, and who’s running it?

if i hadn’t asked these questions over a year and a half ago, i’d be dead now.
there are some who are close to me that i fear for.

Ken Wilber cited some other philosopher or religious person (i can’t really recall) in his book “No Boundary” as saying something to the effect of “the way out is the way in (or the way in is the way out maybe, sorry for shoddy paraphrase).”

many of us grew up with the idea that God is somewhere “out there.” in other words, somewhere beyond the limits of time and space there is a being who is just as much a part of the universe as we are. some think “he” made us and then left us, while others think “he” is playing the role of universal puppeteer. think John Cusack in “Being John Malkovich,” which i suppose would make us Malkovich, for everywhere we look, we tend to see ourselves.

so where will God go when we discover that space it limitless? or if we find the end of space and find no puppeteer? earlier Christians faced a similar problem when the earth was found to be spherical instead of flat. no longer could they believe that Heaven was a literal, and physical place just above the clouds, (as it seems in the story of the ascension) with Hell residing underneath our flat, three-tiered earth as John A.T. Robinson calls it in “Honest to God.”

i have yet to see a better description of God than Paul Tillich’s.

Tillich says God is the “ground of our being.”
Jesus of Nazareth is quoted by some as saying “the Kingdom is within you.”
Protestants often say that the way to salvation is to “ask Jesus into your heart.”
Genesis tells us that we were created in the image of the Creator.

every creation very literally carries it’s creator within, wherever it may go.

here’s the point for those of you concerned with pragmatics:

look within. God is already there. to find salvation, you merely have to accept that you have already been saved. therein lies freedom.
and even better, it doesn’t end there → the way out is the way in → to discover your very existence to be eternally, and completely grounded in God is to let go of insecurities (because to despise yourself is to despise that which you are grounded in) → to let go of insecurities is to no longer despair over whether or not people like you → to let go of the pressure of being liked is to be freed to truly love

→ to truly love is to love not because you think you have to in order to get love in return (since Love is already within you), but because Love is who you are.

Love is who you are.

if you want love, go find yourself →