Recognizing Everyone as God's Beloved Child
...including ourselves
In my quest to do a responsive embodied practice for each chapter of Lerita Coleman Brown’s book What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman, I’ve come to chapter 4: The Genuine in You: Recognize Everyone as a Holy Child of God. I was struck again by Coleman Brown’s use of the word “inoculate” as she talked about Thurman’s spiritual life.
From an early age, Thurman learned from his grandmother’s and mother’s examples, which included regular religious practices such as prayer, Bible reading, church attendance, and spiritual conversations. Through their stories and modeling, young Howard became partially inoculated against the oppressive, racist messages surrounding him. (p. 67)
This idea, that somehow an awareness of God’s deep love could be a shield against the harmful messages about us expressed by other people, our culture, whatever, has always intrigued me. Mostly it’s been intriguing because I’ve never been very good at experiencing it, even though I really wanted to.
Reflecting on this idea in my own life, I realize that parents can only share what wisdom they have. And as I think about my own mom, while she shared many important and beautiful things with me, she also had some wounds around her own worth and value that were never really healed. So growing up, when I would express that someone at school didn’t want to be my friend, or that a boy didn’t like me (yet again), instead of being assured that my worth was unchanging and I was loved no matter what, it was treated as a BIG CRISIS that needed to be solved. And it was always assumed that the problem must be something about me, so I needed to figure out why these people didn’t like me, and then “fix it” so I could be liked. It was pretty much the opposite of inoculating a kid against the harmful barbs of society.
So my embodied activity on this chapter came in two parts:
Part 1: go to a busy public place, set a timer for 45 minutes, and as I see each person go by, look at them with love and say (in my head), “You are a holy child of God.”
Part 2: sit in front of a big mirror, set a timer for 45 minutes, stare at myself and constantly repeat, “You are a beloved child of God.” (I accidentally swapped holy for beloved.)
I was really excited to do part one. I went to a big open courtyard area, got myself a cup of coffee, sat down, and started my timer. Other than a few times when someone saw me staring at them and I had to look away so as not to be a creeper, I was able to notice lots and lots of people, and acknowledge their identity as God’s holy child. It felt really wonderful.
Sometimes I especially noticed the word “child” as I looked at someone and made my internal declaration, especially if they were older folks. It felt good to remember that we’re all God’s children, no matter how old we are. It was also striking to feel it toward a child or baby, and then to their parent, when they were walking together - a parent and child in one sense, but also both children in another sense. Just acknowledging the belovedness and interconnectedness of everybody I saw for 45 minutes was joyful and lightening.
It also made me notice how with some people, I find myself bristling or feeling defensive when I first notice them (I’ll go ahead and not share the types of people that provoke this reaction in me!), and then noticing how my body relaxed as I leaned into an openheartedness toward them instead of a protective posture.
This is something I plan to do again, and maybe even regularly. Maybe even just as I go grocery shopping or something.
I dragged my feet doing part two. I could say this is because I had a bad respiratory cold, and then was out of state for a bit, and blah blah blah. And that might be part of it. But the reality is, I think I had some resistance to staring at myself in the mirror for 45 minutes declaring myself God’s beloved child. And that seems weird, right? I mean, you’d think we’d WANT to acknowledge and luxuriate in this truth.
But finally, about 3 weeks after I did part one, I sat myself in front of a mirror and set the timer for 45 minutes.
You are God’s beloved child.
I said and thought it over and over, taking turns emphasizing each word in different repetitions. It was moving at times, in moments when I felt myself really loved. I was distracted at times. I got a phone call in the middle.
It was important to see my whole physical body in the mirror, which has definitely been one source of quite a bit of derision and vilification throughout my life. So to see my body as it is, and with my hair unstyled, wearing clothes meant for summertime comfort and not for beauty, I had to recognize that this self - this actual, embodied self - is God’s beloved child. Not myself in theory. Not my inner self or my heart. (Well, not exclusively.) My whole self.
It might have made me one tiny degree closer to being able to actually own and believe this truth. Because as I was on my way to a doctor’s appointment today (everything is fine), one place where I am least treated like God’s beloved child, I was about to drift into some degree of shame or blame. But I thought about that self - my embodied self I stared at lovingly for 45 minutes - and thought: no matter what happens in there, you are God’s beloved child.
And I think I did believe it for a few moments.