Radically Happy

As Diarmuid Ó Murchú, propose an integrated vision of connecting to God, our selves, and each other

ChatGPT Prompt (condensed)

Introduction: Communion in Fracture

We live in an age saturated with knowledge yet aching for intimacy—not the sentimental sort, but the deep communion of being seen, known, and transfigured in the presence of God, of one another, and of ourselves.

But the tragic wisdom of the spiritual life is this:

We are most deaf where we most need to hear.
And we are most divided where we most long for union.

This essay explores the anatomy of that deafness—not as moral failure, but as a structure of survival, encoded in what we now call the Negotiated Selves. And it points toward a more compassionate, communal vision of integration: not as personal wholeness alone, but as the shared practice of hearing for one another where we ourselves cannot.

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Negotiated Selves: Our Contracts for Coherence

From our earliest breath, we make contracts of coherence.
With our families.
With our cultures.
And with the wounded parts of ourselves.

These contracts give rise to what I call the Negotiated Self:

That adaptive version of selfhood crafted to generate meaning, safety, and belonging within a particular relational system—often at the cost of alienation from the deeper truth of who we are in God.

We do not choose these selves.
They arise to protect what is sacred.
But the tragedy is: what protects can also imprison.

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Deaf Spots: What We Cannot Hear

Each Negotiated Self comes with terms and conditions—theologies, scripts, emotional limits—which cannot tolerate data that would dissolve the system.

And so we become deaf—selectively, structurally.
Not because we lack faith, but because we fear exile from the very world that our identity depends on.

We may hear God speak about logistics, mission, even personal struggles.
But when God speaks to relational truth, inner integration, or a love that transcends performance,

the Self simply cannot receive it.
Not because it won’t—because it can’t.

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The Integrative Self: A Meta-Negotiator in Exile

In modern spirituality, we often speak of the Integrated Self as the healed whole. But this is a misreading of the terrain.

In truth, the Integrative Self is not the resolution of our fragmentation, but its most honest witness.

It is the one within us that begins to notice:

• “These parts of me don’t speak to each other.”
• “This belief belongs to my church self, not my marriage self.”
• “This contract is still active, even though the threat is gone.”

But even this Self cannot yet fix the alienation [because it has its own contracts].
It can only begin the negotiations anew—with more compassion, more truth, and more surrender.

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True Communion: Hearing [from God] for One Another

And this is why we need each other.
Radically. Structurally. Spiritually.

Because there are places in my soul that will not allow me to hear the voice of God.
And you, standing outside that contract, may be the only one who can hear it for me.

This is not psychological co-dependence—it is ecclesial interdependence.

It is the Body of Christ functioning as it was meant to:

• Listening not just with each other, but on behalf of each other.
• Naming the truths the other cannot yet bear to hear alone.
• Becoming the ear of the Spirit when deafness is built into survival.
• [Communicating acceptance precisely where we cannot accept ourselves]

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Communion as Shared Listening

What if communion is not achieved by escaping our fractured selves—but by inviting others into our deaf spaces?

What if healing does not mean dissolving all the Negotiated Selves—but allowing them to speak, be heard, and enter dialogue under the brooding of the Spirit?

What if the journey toward union with God is the same as the journey toward intimate, dialogical union with ourselves and one another?

Then communion is no longer a prize for the healed—but a practice for the willing.

A covenant not of certainty, but of shared surrender.
A listening not of one voice, but of many reconciled in love.

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7. Closing Prayer

O Christ,
negotiator of covenants,
listener across boundaries,
word spoken into deafness—

Teach us to sit by the fires
of our unreconciled selves.

And give us companions
who will hear
what we cannot bear to know
without love.

Amen.