Becoming

"Becoming a human being involves more than conception and birth. It is a mandate and a mission, a command and a decision. We each have an open-ended relationship to ourselves. We do not possess our being unchallenged; we cannot take our being for granted as God does. Nor do we possess it in the same way as other creatures around us...

Being is entrusted to us as a summons, which we are each to accept and consciously acknowledge. We are never simply a being that is "there" and "ready-made," just for the asking. From the very start we are something that can Be, a being who must win selfhood and decide what it is to be. We must fully become what we are--a human being. To become human through the exercise of our freedom--that is the law of our Being."

This quote is from one of my favorite spiritual classics--Poverty of Spirit by Johannes Baptist Metz. In the front cover I wrote, "We read this for transformation, not information."