Everything counts: balancing me and we

It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.

(Betty Friedan, 1921 – 2006)

 

This was today's meditation posted by Galen Guengerich, Senior Pastor of All Souls Church, NYC. (The more I learn about this man's journey the more I respect him and his path and process.)

Betty Friedan's quote begs the question: How do we find ourselves whole in our own skins? 

We can never see our own eyes directly, only through a mirror.  We experience life in our bodies and we also experience our lives in relationship. It's obvious that we experience from the inside. It's equally obvious that we also see our lives and selves through the eyes of particular individuals around us and through the lens of societal expectations. 

An introvert, I struggle to find some balance of self evaluation that names me worthy in relationship to the world at large. A stay-at-home mom of the generation that Betty Friedan led to break old stereotypes, it's easy for me to see my insignificance.  If you are reading this, you are a rare soul.

Yet direct observation makes it so clear that we are connected to everything, conscious of it or not. Our being, which determines our actions, echos out. (As ye think in your heart, so shall ye be) No one of us can solve a single societal problem alone, but each of us must seek a best path on his/her own. 

As a species we are polluting our home place, our planet to the death of other species. Yesterday I picked up litter along half a mile of the country road where I live. This morning there was a fresh batch. Who are these people? I ask myself. 

Now comes one answer to my mind: they are among those who do not see themselves as whole enough to know that they count in the whole, big picture. But everything counts. Everything.  

"Be the change you wish to see." You count.