Lenten Day Seventeen: Lectio 365 and Poem

March 1, 2024

“The desire to be like someone else is an impossible task, and not from God.” From the prayer app, Lectio 365.

Lectio 365 is one of two prayer apps that I use and recommend to others. The other is Pray as You Go. Both apps come out of Great Britain, so the British voices are always a plus.

I don’t recall what the scripture reading or meditation was that accompanied this quotation from several months ago, but these words touched me enough to write them down and add them to my list of quotations because I believe they are true. And . . . I need to be reminded of the truth. Desiring to be like someone else involves transferring what we, ourselves, already possess onto someone else; we just keep those same parts we already own hidden and inaccessible for various reasons. And hoping to be someone we are not does not come from God, who created us out of love, and who IS love, and who told us to love others as we love ourselves. Instead, it’s a dead-end wish that will never lead to our own self-love and self-acceptance. As Anonymous wisely said, “Comparisons are the kiss of death.” We never win in that kind of comparison.

I know I have my faults and failures and “challenges,” and certainly growing in maturity and spirituality is essential; otherwise, I become stagnant. But I can trust that God has already provided me with all I need to be who God made me to be . . .and that you have all that God made you to be, too.

Journey Blessing

Wherever you are
on your particular ancient path
may you give up expectations,
your own and others,
of what you “should be,”
when you “should have” arrived,
what you “should have” accomplished
by now
along with worry over whether
you have truly achieved
enoughness.

May you leave behind those expectations,
your own and others,
stuffed in the carry-always luggage
you dread hoisting
once more above your head
into the compartment
above, already filled
with bundles and backpacks
of those who could not
unpack.

May you honestly assess
what you have chosen to carry:
old records coated in dust,
ingrained “shoulds” that did not
arise from your own innocent soul,
snapshots yellowing with age
of what people think of you,
manipulations and mind-traps
of every weight and shape
to make you into another’s image.

May you rummage through your luggage
with courage and keep only
what is you,
by you, of you, and then
may you love yourself enough
to set your suitcase aside,
trusting the lightness
of what is precious
to lead you freely onward.

© Rosemary McMahan

Photo credit: Rosemary McMahan