To be human is to be broken and wanting. This keeps us in a perpetual state of needing and seeking. We get hungry, we seek food. We get lonely, we seek connection. We feel empty, we seek fulfillment. We are all addicted to something, and the deficits we experience daily cause us to be seeking our drug: attention, esteem, comfort.
Cheesy, but I think he is sincere.
We often think that as we grow spiritually, we will leave people behind. We tend to struggle with how to approach or talk to people we see as “beneath us” because we are just so “spiritually mature.” We act like we have entered some other realm they cannot even come near.
Then I look at Jesus, who embodied perfect consciousness, all wisdom, maturity and strength and I see how he treated people who might have been seen as “beneath him.” Beggars, cripples, the utterly poor, spiritual zeroes, prostitutes, sinners, the demon-possessed, little children – these were his beloveds. He called them to himself, loved them and had a profound effect on them – each one. They were better for having been near him, and something tells me they did not feel belittled, but valued and helped.
Someone gave me this bit of wisdom once: she said, “the pain tells me that I am alive.” She was battling cancer and all the pain and agony that go along with that, and she stopped taking her pain medication almost altogether. She is a brave soul. She said when the meds covered all of the pain, she would wake up and not know if she was alive or dead. Her illness had progressed to a point where she could go any time, and she didn’t want to be in a drug-induced stupor. She wanted to be alive and endure everything that goes along with that.