Belovedness

The Being and the Becoming the Beloved is our Life's Journey

To be human—to live in the human condition means that all of us; without any exception, are looking for love.  The search for love is the perennial longing across all races, classes of society and all world religions.  All of us want to experience love. We want to be loved.

The books, articles and talks I have given over the decades reveal my own search for a love that will deeply satisfy my soul. Like many of you, I found myself “looking for love in all the wrong places—looking for love in all the wrong faces.”

It wasn’t until I was 38, that I first heard a term that would alter the trajectory of my life. I heard about ‘being and becoming the beloved.’ My search for love took me on an inward journey with a therapist in Raleigh who introduced me to a book written by Henri Nouwen titled, “The Return of the Prodigal.” I read the book. The book read me and I was struck with the realization that I, too, am on a journey to be and to become the beloved. Like the Prodigal, I had to come to “my senses” just like he had to come to his. We lived at different times and cultures, but the truth is the truth no matter where or when. It is a book based on the painting by Rembrandt; the parable of Jesus and reveals the human condition of our attempts to find love; efforts to achieve this love and a compelling story of how this love is finally and convincingly found in this life. It is a beautiful book and a compelling journey to read this amazing treatment of such a deep truth.

After I finished reading the book, I was so impressed and affected by this message, that I asked my own father and elder brother to read it and then go on a get-a-way to the mountains to talk about the book and our own triangle of male family dynamics of trying to find this love. It was  a beautiful way to celebrate my father’s 80^th birthday and gave us a way of finding one another after all the years of trying to be family—but never really sensing my own belonging in my family.

The journey to become the beloved is best told in two compelling events in the life of Jesus. The first event was Jesus’ own baptism, when at about the age of 30, stood in a river with his cousin.  We’re told in this remarkable scene that Jesus rose up out of that river water hearing the life altering words: “You are my beloved son and in you I am well pleased.”  Everything for Jesus changed when hearing these words. Up until this time, Jesus had made furniture. After this time, he made people whole. 

The profound implications of this story are that:

Jesus was told—he did not assume that he was loved.

This being told is pivotal.  Something happens when a human being is told that they are loved; that they are wanted; that they are delighted in!  Love tells. Love does not have to assume. In this “telling,” everything is re-framed in our lives—what we think about God; how we view God and how we learn to view our own selves.   That God would lavish such love re-frames an image many of us hold onto about God. Many of us develop a false narrative about God being angry and upset with us—that we didn’t do enough; that we didn’t do “it” right; that we are unloveable, unwanted and unacceptable.  We project on to God how we experienced love. These projections, when untrue, must be dismantled and deconstructed. Just think about it for a moment…how could the creator of this world and universe be angry? As we are told by the Beloved Apostle John, “God is love.” And, as we live our lives, this singular truth is either believed and accepted or it is not.

These false narratives and core lies embed themselves into our minds; into our hearts and into our bodies where they are stored and collected throughout our lifetimes. It can take a lifetime to dismantle that we are loved because of what we do; we are loved because of what we have; and we are loved when other people think we are loveable. We can grow up believing a lie that we are not enough; that we do not have what it takes and that love is conditional.

It takes years to unlearn and lay down these false stories about life and faith. This unlearning is the journey of “becoming” the beloved. The “becoming” is an unlearning and relearning. It is a forming and an unforming. It is, for many of us a healing and transformation—and this, as I see it now, was the contagious message of Jesus.

The second time, Jesus experienced this message was when he took a few of his companions mountain climbing. There on the mountain, Jesus experienced a strange phenomenon called the transfiguration. This Sacred Voice again spoke similar words that Jesus heard at his baptism. He was told again that he was the beloved and that God was delighted in him. The apostle Peter was an eye witness to this experience and in Peter’s own letter shared how transformational this entire experience was to him—in fact it was life altering for Peter to hear this for himself. It was a truth that stayed with Peter as he grew into being an older man. It is a truth for me as I, like Peter, become the older man.

I consider the message of being and becoming the beloved, the most foundational; absolutely essential and totally life-changing message there is on this planet. Hearing these words for myself and believing them is really my life’s journey thus far.

If you’ve heard me, read me; worked with me or listened to me, you know how core and central this is and after all these years hearing competing messages and rivaling lessons, what I can tell you is this: Until we learn who we are and what our essence is, then we will never get life and love quite right—no matter how hard we try.

Because of this, I’ve been working on a way that might be helpful for those of us who want to “become” the Beloved.  It’s a primer way of working through this spiritual truth. Im calling it: “The A, B, C’s of Belovedness.”  When we first learned how to read, the teachers would give us a “primer”—a simple, easy and elementary form of  learning to read.  When you began to read, you grabbed the primer; you worked with the primer; you followed the primer until at last, you found yourself reading. “The A, B, C’s of Belovedness” is a spiritual primer. It is the A, B, C’s of simple statements that might be helpful to read, repeat and practice until the whole idea of being and becoming the Beloved takes root in your heart—that place where the message is most needed—that place, way down deep in the fourth, dark quadrant where lies run rampant denying this truth and keeping us from living this amazing truth out in our normal, every day lives.

Here are the A, B, C’s—To Become the Beloved, I must:

A-agree with my limitations and my glory.

A-Accept my ruin and my delight.

A-Acknowledge the shame and acknowledge my own story.

A-Admit my woe and wonder.

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B-Be myself—no one else.

B-Believe the truth about myself, no matter how beautiful it is.

B-Become who I truly am

B-Belong taking up my own place in the spaces I am in now.

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C-Confess my lies, shame and untruth, and false narratives that are not true.

C-Consent to be the person that I am

C-Center myself in this truth daily.

C-Convey this truth to others.

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These statements are simple to read, but much more difficult to marinate in and take on the truth and implications of each one. It may well take time, conversations and prayer to use this primer in your own life. I suspect it will take all three and more.  But, word by word, step by step and phrase by phrase, our becoming the beloved will gain traction and alter our own lives.

I am convinced it is a process—not a step by step way of becoming who we truly are in life. It is a process because the truth and message about being and becoming the beloved is counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. It is counter-intuitive for many of us because we, for a thousand different reasons, never quite got this message. It is counter-cultural because our culture continues to shape us into being loved “if” and only “if” we do certain things; act certain ways or attempt certain feats.

As you know, I turn to poetry to help me and perhaps help some of you read between the lines and see a truth that is compelling. For many of my poems, I work on each one for a few days or a few weeks. But not this one that I am going to share with you here. I think it is true that it has taken me 69 years, eight months and six days to write this one poem.

If you’re new to me on Substack and have not yet read my own memoir on my own journey of being and becoming the beloved, then please read my book, The Lazarus Life. In this book I share about my own formation and my attempts to find love—especially in my work. If you are familiar with my story and work, then I think you’ll see how this poem captures my life’s message and my life’s journey. It’s my hope that in reading this, that you too, will be encouraged to become who you are and to offer this great gift to others.

I’m delighted that I’ll be going on a retreat to a Trappist Monastery near Charleston, SC this weekend, with a few other pilgrims to wrestle and relax in this message. Taking the time; moving into a beautiful space and having conversations about this message are all a part of our gathering.

So here’s my poem. (For any new Substack readers, here’s where there’s point of deciding. To gain access to my poems, then you’ll need to either become a “paid subscriber” or write me and email telling that you’d like to be one but just can’t pay the suggested rate. No questions, asked, I’ll add you. Write me at info@pottersinn.com