“…we over identify with the cultural and emotional conditioning we all acquired, and this conditioning coalesces around groups and their belief systems, whether ethnic, religious, political, social, family, etc. During adolescence we identify with our peer group as a means of developing socialization skills and group acceptance. It is meant to help us grow and flourish; it is not meant to fixate us at this particular stage and bind us there for a lifetime. Basing our consciousness on group identity can be very powerful and demanding, even hypnotizing, and when it reaches this level of identification, mythic membership prevents us from identifying with our own integrity in divine relationship with God.”
— from “The Grace of the Sacred Word”, an article by Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler that appears in the June 2012 issue of Contemplative Outreach
Maybe a "true Christian" must always be the outsider..
ReplyDeleteI think you're right, J.
DeleteIt seems to me that the only way one can find a way outside of the group identity is trust in the personal relationship with God, which is intimately related to one's integrity. It's something other than trust in oneself, though.
It's kind of like finding your own ground (in God) and then being free to follow this lone road.
Good Louie, Louie..... Group mentality is what's screwing things up.... Too long of a discussion for an e-mail
ReplyDeletesandy
In the words of Robert Frost we have to take "the road less traveled by" to become who we truly are. Personally, I think, it requires no less than the grace of God to break free from group identity...
ReplyDeleteYes. We have to go against the flow, but only the grace of God can get us there.
DeleteReminds me of something I heard the other day (Richard Rohr?): that even the quest for enlightenment is the work of the ego and bound to fail.