Yesterday I shared some stuff about the stranger and being open to change. Change through encounters with other people and other ideas which require a certain level of both vulnerability and humility.

Today’s Rohr meditation has caused me to think further:

Rohr, correctly I think, suggests that life (discipleship?) is a lot more about discovering who we already are which can only come through unlearning stuff we have wrongly taken on. One way of unlearning, and rediscovering who we are, can be through interaction with others.  It is in this interaction with other people, with exposure to other methods and ways of thinking, that we can discover our need to change, or to turn …. not once … but over and over again.

We know that we are already created in the image of God. So it makes a lot of sense to say that the Christian life is about discovering, or is that re-discovering, who we are … and unlearning the unhelpful stuff …. so to uncover the original that is already there, but has become hidden.

If we are created in the image of God then we can rightly view ourselves as masterpieces, the creation. As I’ve thought about this today I have thought about an art restorer restoring a masterpiece. As he or she gently cleans off the grime, more and more of the original masterpiece is seen. Parts of the image are ‘rediscovered’ and become noticeable for the first time in many years. In many cases the masterpiece takes on a whole new meaning and certain things that were puzzling become more understandable.

As we interact, listen, learn, become aware is it possible for us, also, to uncover parts of God’s masterpiece we call ourselves that we had forgotten were there, or have simply been blind to for many years? I believe we can.

To be authentically human is to change … and to be whole human is to change many times.

There’s a challenge!