we come to God not by our perfection
but by our imperfection
That gives all of us an equal chance
and utterly levels the human playing field
No pretending or denying is helpful any longer
Deep within each of us lives both a leper and a wolf
both of which we are ashamed and afraid of
In Franciscan lore, they are our inner imperfections
Francis embraced the leper below Assisi and called it his conversion
later Francis tamed the wolf that was ravaging the countryside of Gubbio
The stories did happen historically
but first of all they must have happened in his soul
Our inner life
our emotional life
our prayer life
is where we first do our battles
and then we are prepared for our outer life conflicts
It is on the inside of us that lepers and wolves first live
If we haven’t been able to kiss many lepers
if we haven’t been able to tame many wolves
in the outer world
it’s probably because we haven’t first of all made friends
with our own leprosy and the ferocious wolf
within each of us
They are always there in some form
waiting to be tamed
and needing to be forgiven
Richard Rohr
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