Brian’s Reflection: Tuesday, September 4, 2007


In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon.
What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.

- Mary Renault, English-born South African author,
born on this day, 1905

Mary Renault is a hero of mine. She was a writer. And by God she was honest. What a refreshing thing. As a young person, I inhaled her books, especially her trilogy on Alexander the Great. She made the Classical Greek world come alive for me. She made me dream. She made me understand that there was a genuine glory in being who you really were as a human being. I think that I have read “The King Must Die” at least five times. Oh, the tale was rivetingly absorbing! But she helped me understand something mystical that lies at the core of the Christian myth (“faith/truth story”). “The God dying” (Jesus on the Cross) points to the fundamental truth that we and what we call the Divine are part of the same reality. I don’t “hoard” books - but Mary Renault’s works rest on my shelves, critical to understanding Life.

Jesus is reported to have said, “Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where rust and moth corrupt …. Where your treasure is, there will your heart also be”. Mary Renault is correct. Her words remind us that we become what we choose to value ….. or to devalue. For example, if we loathe those who are not like us, we become ourself something to be loathed. And since there is so much of ourselves we fear to embrace and to integrate, we have chosen the path of self-destruction.

Joshua said to the people of Israel as they were poised to enter the Promised Land (alas, a wicked interpretation of the Bible!), “Choose today Whom you shall serve.” I say, Choose Love. Love what is vulnerable; what is fragile; what is confounding; what is humbling; what is disturbing; what eradicates division; what raises our hackles; what makes us afraid; what angers us; what makes us contemptuous; what urges arrogance; what stimulates pride; what urges judgmentalism. Loving these things leads us to cherish our brokenness - and in that embrace we will be led to glory.

If we brood upon what we loath (and fear), our soul withers. If we brood upon Love, our soul is shaped into the image of Compassion.

Do not brood on anything but Gentleness and Kindness. Rejoice in the strength of your vulnerability. You will become unconquerable, and a blessing.

Brian+