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Integrating the Negative
Integrating the Negative

Integrating the Negative: Weekly Summary

Saturday, January 25, 2025

Sunday 
I suppose there is no more counterintuitive spiritual idea than the possibility that God might actually use and find necessary what we fear, avoid, deny, and deem unworthy. This is what I mean by the “integration of the negative.” 
—Richard Rohr 

Monday 
There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.  
—Martin Luther King Jr. 

Tuesday 
I am continually challenged to stop arguing with reality and instead soften into what is. Over time, I learned to find beauty, meaning, and wholeness in the heart of reality. Unpredictable, ever-changing, humiliating, and humbling reality. 
—Mirabai Starr 

Wednesday 
Entering the spiritual search for truth and for ourselves through the so-called negative, dealing squarely with what is—in ourselves, in others, or in the world around us—takes all elitism out of spirituality. 
—Richard Rohr 

Thursday 
Just for today, I will try to let go of my need for control, to become aware of when I need help, and to ask for help when I need it. Just for today, I give myself permission to cry when I’m sad, to scream when I’m frustrated, to smile and laugh when I’m happy, and to dance like I’ve got wings when the Spirit moves me. 
—Chanequa Walker-Barnes 

Friday 
If we come to God by being perfect, no one is going to come to God. Our failures open our hearts of stone and move our rigid mind space toward understanding and patience. 
—Richard Rohr  

Week Four Practice 
Loving Imperfect People Imperfectly  

And the king will answer them, “Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” —Matthew 25:40 

On her podcast Love Period, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reflects on how we are called to love imperfect people imperfectly:  

This is the kind of love Rabbi Jesus was talking about. If they’re in prison, if they’re hungry, if they’re naked, if they’re lonely, if they’re a stranger, a widow, a child, if they’re an outsider, if they’re last, they become first. In our holy imagination, this kind of love is radical: beyond borders, beyond religion, beyond gender, beyond sexuality, beyond have and have-not, beyond blue and red; it’s love your neighbor across these religious categories and belief systems…. 

I’m wondering what love means now. On the way to an election and on the other side of it, whenever you hear these words, who’s your neighbor and how do you love them? Can you see and feel their humanity? Sense their connectedness to you, the way you’re alike, even though you’re different? The way their blood is red, no matter what color their skin is? The way their heart beats, no matter who they love or how they love them? Can you sense your neighbor’s kinship with you and therefore be imagining that their self-interest and your self-interest are intertwined?…

What will love have you do?… What is a starting place to look at the world through someone else’s eyes and have empathy for them?… Who’s the one person that you want to understand better and want to learn from and perhaps also teach? Pick a person to start with. I’m not saying go to the person that will make you feel in danger or in harm, but somebody who can be a conversation partner about what love needs to be now for all of us. Will you consider that one person and then maybe another who can increase your tribe, help you to see things differently, help you to love more profoundly? A neighbor, not exactly like you, but a neighbor, nonetheless. Let’s try that, won’t you? 

Reference: 
Adapted from Jacqui Lewis, host, Love Period, podcast, season 4, ep. 10, “Love Thy Neighbor,” Center for Action and Contemplation, October 30, 2024. 

Image credit and inspiration: Nadya Spetnitskaya, Untitled (detail), 2018, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Making bread requires the integration of dry and liquid ingredients that must be kneaded and combined. They move from messiness to a cohesive form, just like any kind of integration process. 

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