Reflections

How often do I feel that dark part of me rising up, rationalizing that it is only being honest, or attempting to help, or sharing, when in truth it is defending itself? Insecurity turns would-be lovers into artists trying to remake each other into the person whose image first ran across the screen, two dimensional creations without the depth and mystery of human frailties.   Thomas Merton said it best: The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.