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Word from Grace Street: To Be on Good Speaking Terms with Oneself
Posted by Wallace+
"To love one's neighbor as oneself."
Okay, but do we love ourselves?
And, if we don't consciously work at loving ourselves, how far do we expect to get with our neighbors?
Brother Curtis Almquist, of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, has said, "We love our neighbors the way we love ourselves."
Curtis reflects further,
"The hallmark of solitude is being on good speaking terms with oneself. Solitude invites you to be a very good friend to yourself, to enjoy your own company...Unless I can be a very good companion to myself, I probably cannot be a good member of a community, because I'm going to externalize, I'm going to project, a great deal of my longing, unwittingly and unfairly, onto other people, who simply are never going to be enough...You have to first be reconciled to yourself."
To love one another as God would have us love one another, first we must love ourselves: we must spend time with ourselves; we must, as Curtis says, be on good speaking terms with ourselves.
It's for our own good, yes; and for the sake of everyone around us.
Your brother in Christ,
Wallace+
