"Throughout the history of humankind, mystics have sought to liberate themselves from their ego, their fundamental selfishness, in order to live in a deeper union with God and to be free to love as God loves — with compassion. There have also been men and women who, though they may not have specifically sought a union with God, were seekers of truth and compassion, and worked for peace and the unity of humanity.
This union with God, this trust that we are loved by God and held in the arms of God, gives us inner strength and fortifies our desire to be, and to be true. It permits us to see each person, each event, the great march of history, and the whole universe itself as God sees them. This in itself diminishes our need to prove ourselves or to hide behind barriers of power or knowledge. It lessens our fears of being rejected. It also prevents us from making an absolute of anything. No one person, no one group, not even humanity in its entirety is God.
This communion with God does not create a tension between our bodies and our spirit. God is at the source of all our being—spirit and matter. This communion brings us to inner wholeness. The danger for us is to block off the life that flows into us from the heart and Source of the universe when we seek affirmation of our ego in a constant search for power and recognition. With the death of our false self, we liberate the life of God in us and, in the words of Martin Buber, we allow God to flow through our hearts and our beings and thus to enter into our world. The message of Jesus has often been mangled. Yet Jesus came to lead us all into a society that is a body, where each part, weak or strong, able or disabled, finds its place and is free. This vision for humanity, which is a vision of goodness and compassion for each person, comes from a God of Love, who wants to change our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh.
Humanity needs to return to this humble, loving God who is all heart. It needs to rediscover the message of gentleness, tenderness, nonviolence, and forgiveness, to rediscover the beauty of our universe, of matter, of our own bodies, and of all life. This path of rediscovery will be a struggle, but a worthwhile one."
+ Jean Vanier, Becoming Human, 132-133
