This is Deep
Thanks to Fritz Kling, who emailed me the following Nelson Mandela quote from his 1994 Inaugural Address.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."I'm feeling this (leaving aside the theological nuances about the light that is within us). Every person everywhere wrestles with identity questions: "Who am I? Why am I here?" We tend to answer them on an imbalanced scale, either thinking too lowly of ourselves, or too highly. That's why helping young people establish healthy self-respect is one of the overriding objectives of Generation Xcel. More significantly, it was critical to Christ's mission on earth. The most important commandment, He said, is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and strength." Likewise the second is, "Love your neighbor as yourself." It's impossible to love God with everything one has if one hates oneself, or conversely if one overinflates one's self-importance. It's similarly impossible to love one's neighbor as oneself in the absence of self-love tempered by humility.
posted by Jeremy Del Rio @ 2/01/2005 01:28:00 PM
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