Something is wrong with the world.

Something is wrong with you.

I think we all can see those two truths at times. But at times, we can get busy with day-to-day life and let the problems of the world fade into the background. We have our own lives, and our own problems to deal with. The big problems in the world aren't for us to solve. We're often not doing that well dealing with our own little problems. But what if both of these problems were linked. What if they were one and the same problem.

The problem in the world is the problem in me.

What's wrong in me, that's also wrong in the world?

The core problem is separation. God made us for communion and community. But we're trying to accomplish both of those through separation. What do I mean by that?

When we think of the world as all these separate parts, then try to figure out how they fit together, we start from the wrong place. When we start from the idea that everything is one thing, and nothing is separate, then we can see the problem in the world and me.

I am not one person in the world, among a world of so many other people and things. I am one part of the body of the world, the community of all living things. We're all in this together. We don't get to decide who should be here, and who shouldn't. We don't decide who is good, and who is bad. We don't decide who should be loved, and who shouldn't. We don't decide who or what is more important, and who or what is less. Once we take the place of deciding what we think the world should be, we cut ourselves off from the world, and the world off from us. Then we are trying to manage the world as something separate, and something separated.

How we see ourselves is how we will see others.

How we treat ourselves is how we will treat others.

I am not the center of the world. I do not delineate the world from the center point of me. I am one part of the world. God is the center, and what God has created is what is. When I accept that God does nothing arbitrary, and nothing that is not good, I can start to work on the problem of the idea of separation in me, and separation in the world.

We're not a bunch of separate, separated parts trying to fit together. We're one thing, and we're all together.

If we start from there, then we can see the world differently. Then we can stop asking the question, should something be here, and start asking, what should my relationship to all things be.

It's a simple yet profound shift of perspective. I don't decide if something should be in the world, or the value it has. I do get to discover what my relationship to the world is. I don't decide the value of things. I discover their value. All things God has made, God has made for a reason. I may not understand the reason. But that is the journey we are on, each individually.

The world is broken, because I believe it is broken. The world is separated, because I believe it is separated. I am broken, because I believe I am broken. I am separated, because I believe I am separated. But the opposite is also true. If we can start to see in a new way, we can start down the path of letting God correct our broken vision of ourselves and the world. Then we can begin to love ourselves and the world as we were meant to, as we were made to. Amen!