From “The Soulwork of Justice: Four Movements for Contemplative Action” by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson.
Destroying false protective coverings allows the emergence of what is true. Layers of dross hide your connection to being held in God’s love, reflecting back the image of God. You are kept isolated from this, just as the plaster and clay shrouded the gold Buddha. This creates the illusion of a separated self, living in deluded isolation. Thomas Merton called this the “false self.” Richard Rohr rephrases this as the “separate self,” capturing better perhaps the subtle nuance of this mistaken identity.
My journals over many documented how my life would pivot around values, goals, and aspirations that in our culture, and even in the subculture of our churches, appeared to me as attractive and justifiable. I doubt it’s any different for you. Your self-sufficiency, your agency, your mastery, your success, your strength, your wealth, your reputation, your power – this all is the dross, the external layers that come to define your identity. Celebrity trumps character. But all this and more prospers by protecting your separation from your truest identity found through an abandonment to God’s love.
The refiner’s fire liberates the image of God in you.