A Spirituality of Subtraction
There are two major approaches to spirituality and to conversion. We can try to exclude and triumph over the negative parts, the shadow parts, the “inferior parts” (1 Corinthians 12:22), as Paul calls them. This leads us to a kind of heroic spirituality based on willpower and the achievement of some sort of supposed perfection. But if you are honest, what you are really doing is pretending–and excluding the dark side that you do not want to look at, or the people you do not want to deal with. The way of Francis included and integrated the negative–forgiving and accepting the imperfection and woundedness of life. He agreed with Paul that the supposed inferior or weakest are, in fact, “the most indispensable.”