Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Slightly Overweight Tuesday
So, starting tomorrow, we're all supposed to give up our vices. Everything in our lives that proves to be a detriment must go on the chopping block, and one of them will not come out alive. But who am I kidding? Not being Catholic, I do not observe lent. So today is just a day with a built-in excuse to eat high-fat, high-calorie pastries.
I suppose that if I were serious about giving up a vice that was difficult to surrender, it would be the vice of selfishness, or the entitlement, or self-righteous faux-virtue. My paramasturbatory tendency to lick my injuries and mentally rehearse all the things I would like to say to those who have hurt me is far more damaging to my spiritual nature than the tendency to enjoy too many desserts or drink too much coffee. I look at people who are overtly sinning and think, "Well, at last I am not like THAT!", all the while nurturing my entitlement to be angry and thirst for revenge, which I have labeled justice. I have stopped smoking cigarettes, choosing rather to poison my soul with a steady flow of justifications, arrogance, and selfishness.
It is funny, really, when I have to face the reality of who I am as a person. I talk about wanting to get involved in a ministry someday. The truth is, though, that I jealously guard my time and space. I do not hesitate to tell anyone how important it is to me to have time to do the things I want to do, and that I do not easily sacrifice that time for anyone or anything. Ministry is about giving, about dying to self, about being poured out and spent. Sacrificing the temporal for the eternal. I say this is what I feel called to. And I do. Yet I also realize that such a calling does not come without a price, and that I will need to pay that price if I am to be faithful to what God has put in my heart to do.
The fact is, living alone, I have a lot of time for me. Tons of it. Too much. I have become very selfish with it, in fact. My desire for independence has become a tendency toward anti-socialism, and it seems to be ever more so the longer I am alone. I see the value of community now. The question is what is to be done with this new understanding?
I suppose that if I were serious about giving up a vice that was difficult to surrender, it would be the vice of selfishness, or the entitlement, or self-righteous faux-virtue. My paramasturbatory tendency to lick my injuries and mentally rehearse all the things I would like to say to those who have hurt me is far more damaging to my spiritual nature than the tendency to enjoy too many desserts or drink too much coffee. I look at people who are overtly sinning and think, "Well, at last I am not like THAT!", all the while nurturing my entitlement to be angry and thirst for revenge, which I have labeled justice. I have stopped smoking cigarettes, choosing rather to poison my soul with a steady flow of justifications, arrogance, and selfishness.
It is funny, really, when I have to face the reality of who I am as a person. I talk about wanting to get involved in a ministry someday. The truth is, though, that I jealously guard my time and space. I do not hesitate to tell anyone how important it is to me to have time to do the things I want to do, and that I do not easily sacrifice that time for anyone or anything. Ministry is about giving, about dying to self, about being poured out and spent. Sacrificing the temporal for the eternal. I say this is what I feel called to. And I do. Yet I also realize that such a calling does not come without a price, and that I will need to pay that price if I am to be faithful to what God has put in my heart to do.
The fact is, living alone, I have a lot of time for me. Tons of it. Too much. I have become very selfish with it, in fact. My desire for independence has become a tendency toward anti-socialism, and it seems to be ever more so the longer I am alone. I see the value of community now. The question is what is to be done with this new understanding?
// posted by Jaden's Mom @ 2/20/2007 10:21:00 PM 
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