Awareness, The Perils and Opportunities of Reality contains a (more or less) transcription of an Anthony de Mello workshop. de Mello was a Jesuit priest. I imagine he got away with saying some of the things he did because of being a Jesuit.
I’ve read this before many years ago. Probably more than once. Someone recently advised reading this little book frequently as a spiritual “pick-me-up”.
He hit me with a section on awareness that reminded me of a moment of awareness I experienced. It was about people. Fellow human beings. It was about how we label others (and others label us), in many cases to make us seem less than human because we are not like them, or they like us.
But we are all alike. Jesus, I was reminded, didn’t really associate with “his own kind”. He associated with “sinners and tax collectors”, and people of another tribe (Samaritans), and “Gentiles” (Romans, Greeks, most likely others).
He attacked the hypocrisy of those who considered themselves superior.
de Mello contends we are all asleep. Unaware. And we don’t really want to awaken. That seems uncomfortable.
Maybe when we stop trying to force other people to be like us we will briefly awaken, in de Mello’s terms. We will realize that we are all in this thing called life together.
We are all strange and a little screwed-up. I guess that’s being human. Get over it.
Faith Venture 
Leave a Reply