In one of my wedding homilies, I remind everyone of the well known saying, "You can be right, or you can be happy.", and then I say, "It's never so true as in marriage. If you insist on keeping score, on being vindicated, on preserving your dignity - you very well may fail in love." This preaches well, but these behaviors seem second nature to most of us. After all, if we don’t keep score, won’t we leave ourselves in a weak position? And who among us doesn’t want to be vindicated and proven right? And why not at the very least determine to protect our dignity? And yet these behaviors stamp out love. Don’t get me wrong, marriage is not about being a pleaser, a pushover or a doormat. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. I’m talking about being led around by the nose by my ego – which controls me by fear, so that whether I speak up or shut up, I’m doing it out of fear and not out of love. I like what Vincent Roazzi says in his book The Spirituality of Success, “If you do not have a plan for your ego, it will have a plan for you. You can be the master of your ego or you can be its slave. It’s your choice.” If I’m circling the wagons – either to protect myself, or in preparation for a fight – then I’m being dominated by my ego – by my innate desire not to be hurt. Let me lash out, let me withdraw into my cave – anything but speaking up or standing up in love. If I let the walls go up, I protect myself from hurt, but I also keep myself from love. The first course feels safe and familiar. The second course feels foreign and frightening. In choosing it, I determine to love without regard to how I may be hurt. I drop my defenses and refuse to play games. There is no guaranteed outcome, but what occurs is the possibility of a deeper human connection. I need this, and so does my partner or friend, but it’s counterintuitive and so very uncomfortable. In the Psalms it says of God’s compassions that “they are new every morning.” Among other things I take this to mean that with each new day I receive a clean slate to give this another try. That’s what I need. It’s a long learning curve. Maybe today I’ll do better.