The whole purpose of spiritual direction is to penetrate beneath the surface of a man’s life, to get behind the façade of conventional gestures and attitudes which he presents to the world, and to bring out his inner spiritual freedom, his inmost truth, which is what we call the likeness of Christ in his soul. Thomas Merton

Acceptance – we yearn for it in our inmost being. We long for others to accept us as we are, and yet we are terrified that who we are – which includes our shortcomings, our fears, our secret stories of horror, the terrible things we have thought and done – will repel others and deny us the very acceptance we seek.

And so we don costumes, adapting some role that isn’t us, hoping to finally earn acceptance. But is it really acceptance if we gain it as someone other than our true self?

Maintaining the false self requires exerting so much effort that we then collapse when in solitude and wonder why we feel so empty, lonely, and starved for the very thing we created the false self in the first place – acceptance.

Your deepest desires for acceptance cannot and will not be met until your true self can safely and wholly emerge in full view of another that has an enthusiastic willingness to approach, to touch, to wipe away tears, to gently clean away all impurities to reveal the beauty that lies beneath – you. 

When your desire for acceptance, free of costume, meets and grasps the divine desire to accept you for who you really are – you have reached the most sacred space on all earth – the axis mundi – where heaven meets earth. Where the divine meets – and embraces – you.

Source Scripture

Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-16

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Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist 
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Recommended Reading

The Hidden Order of Intimacy: Reflections on the Book of Leviticus