Maturity involves acknowledging the shadow side of our life, embracing it even, and learning to live with it all the while disallowing it from predominating in our life.  It is there.  We can deny it, even put our blinders on, but it is still there!  Even those who live an Ozzie and Harriet life still have a shadow side.

And relevant to this shadow side, I’d like to share today’s posting from Richard Rohr:

Expelling what you can’t embrace gives you an identity, but it’s a negative identity. It’s not life energy; it’s death energy. Formulating what you are against gives you a very quick, clear, and clean sense of yourself. Thus, most people fall for it. People more easily define themselves by what they are against, by who they hate, by who else is wrong, instead of by what they believe in and whom they love.