ego.

I was headed to a meeting last week and I had a talk with my ego. This is not something I’ve done until recently, but I’m doing more. 

I address my ego by name. I looked over at the seat. “Rhino,” I said. (That’s my ego’s name.) 

“I love you. You are the man. You are awesome. I appreciate you for everything you do. You have helped to shape me into who I am today. But, right now, I don’t need you to come this meeting with me. In fact, I prefer if you stay in the car. I’m going to be good without you! I can handle it. So, I’ll see you later.” 

The ego. Rhino rides through life with me, making me do things I don’t want to do. But, I do want to do.  

Richard Rohr says that we should change “flesh” in the Bible, especially with Paul, to ego. 

I agree. It would make a lot more sense. (Especially when John begins his book with the idea of the Word becoming flesh... and that was apparently pretty awesome. So this flesh stuff is not all bad.) 

The ego has done some good for us as we’ve grown and become who we are. But now, it’s mostly damaging. It’s that thing that we are all fighting. 

I think we can boil it down to the ego and the divine in each of us. In constant battle. 

The ego loves to belittle to make itself feel better. 
The divine already knows its the best. 

The ego loves to congratulate itself that it’s not like them. 
The divine already knows we’re all the same. 

The ego says we earned it. 
The divine says it’s all a gift. 

The ego says they are evil. 
The divine says they are children. 

They ego loves bad religion. 
The divine is repelled by it. 

If we really want to know exactly what the ego looks like in human form, we can look at the Pharisees. 

If we really want to know exactly what the divine looks like in human form, we can look at Jesus. 

They don’t get along well at all. 

Jesus came to free the ego from its chains but in order to do so, the ego had to acknowledge the audacity of love for everyone. 

It couldn’t handle it. So it killed the divine. 

We’ve got be careful of the ego. It’s still killing the divine in people everywhere. It’s still killing the divine in us. 

You might want to let it know that you would prefer it didn’t.