Blog 3828 – 05.16.2026

Two Myths That Continue To Torment Us

There are so many myths that people believe that are relatively harmless and a few that even help them to be better people. Yet, today I would like to point out two myths that continue to torment  many who refuse to disown them. They are the myth of isolation and its twin the myth of incompleteness.

The feeling of isolation and aloneness has plagued almost everyone at some point in their lives. Yet, we are not alone nor could we ever really be, for we are in the words of one New Testament writer, “encompassed about with a great cloud of witnesses” cheering us on as it were. Everyone we have ever loved and everyone who has ever loved us living or dead is ever with us encouraging us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us.” The enemy of our souls shouts at us ever that no one cares, that we are completely alone. In those darkest moments if we listen carefully we can still hear echoed in our hearts and minds the sweetest words ever uttered, “I will never leave you.” You and I are not alone. The childhood reply to the question, “You and whose army?” Is more true that we ever knew, “Me, myself, and I” is but the visible core of a great host that is ever near and always at the ready . The writer of one of my favorite Christian songs, quoting a gospel verse says, that He (Jesus) “could have called ten thousand (a legion) of angels to destroy the world and set him free” We have endless reserved to draw upon.

The second great myth that torments many of us is that we are incomplete. Co-dependency is the psychological term for those afflicted with the debilitating disorder that stems from believing the myth that we are not complete in ourselves, but forever in need of someone else to complete us or make us whole.

Even in the myth of creation described in the first chapters of Genesis where God brings all the animals before man to name them and man concludes there is no companion or counterpart in the animal world for him, the story says that Gods caused a deep sleep to come over him so that He could take a bit of flesh and bone from the man’s own chest and fashioned a helpmeet for him. This dream that we are incomplete in ourselves, only half a person, requiring another incomplete person to complete us is not only insane but the math just does not add up. Buying into the idea that we are incomplete in ourselves creates a hole impossible for anyone else to fill. 

I carry a small heart-shaped medallion in my pocket about the size of a quarter that says on one side, “Thank you for this day, Spirit” and on the other, “I am holy, I am whole” to remind me of Who and Whose I am. The answer to the age old question, “Who is the Lord of glory?” Has a simple answer for me. It is, “I am, me,myself and I.” And by that I mean my highest and best self.

Our worst behaviors do not come from loving ourselves too much, but from thinking ourselves isolated and incomplete. A couple of lines from my personal mantra come to mind, “I am healthy, I am happy, I am whole. I am patient, I am persistent, but most of all I am kind.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White