CRUCIFYING ALL OF MY SELVES

One booger in the nose of progress on this Journey is the fact that, in addition to my personal Self, I have any number of public selves. I have a political self; I have a religious self; I have a patriotic self; I have...you get the idea. When I am driving down the road and encounter someone who is driving irresponsibly, I am tempted to confront that person and challenge him/her to behave more responsibly for the sake of others’ safety. That is my Civic Self. When I see someone wasting water or motor fuel, I feel similar inclinations. My zeal regarding such matters is so great that my Religious Self may become involved.

My Political Self is torn between wanting the freedom to choose my own behavior without government interference and the security of having the government control how others exercise their freedom. If only I could trust my neighbors to behave responsibly, we all could be free together. Our security would exist in our tacit understanding of the Symbiosis Principle. However, I cannot trust my neighbors—some of whom are still slaves to sin—to do what is right. Each does as he pleases: some do what is right in their own eyes; others do what feels “good”. But none is righteous—not even one.

The question I must continually ask myself, when I am harmed or inconvenienced by antisocial behavior, is: “Who is being harmed by this or that behavior?”. If innocent people are being genuinely harmed, I am right to be indignant and to confront the evildoers. However, if the harm is largely illusory or if it is being inflicted upon a mere “self”, perhaps I would do better simply to turn my other cheek and forgive the slight.

The “Self”, as used in this ‘blog, is that part of each of us that is the recipient of insults, injuries and wounded feelings. It is that one of our members that we refer to as ‘I’, ‘me’ or ‘myself’. The Self not only receives hurts from the world; it also inflicts them on others by imposing its Will on them.

Today, my wife pushed a button on my Self control panel. Apparently, it was wired to a Screaming mechanism. As soon as she pushed it, I started screaming and swearing at her. When the Bible calls “Self Control” a fruit of the Spirit, it’s clearly not talking about this kind of control. When the Self has been dethroned and the Holy Spirit has been enthroned in one’s heart, the Spirit controls the Self instead of the Self running amok, unable to control itself.

What my wife did to “set me off” was she made an observation about me. She said I’m full of hot air. She said these blogs I write and the sermons I preach are all about me and not about God. She said that, when I talk about the Biblical standard of submission in marriage, I’m really saying that I want a Stepford Wife—not a real woman of God. The reason I got so upset is that she never praises me—she only puts me down. If she ever has anything to say about me—or to me—it is likely to be insulting. Our son has begun to speak to me in a similar fashion.

Meanwhile, I am striving to put Philippians 4:8 into practice: “Whatever is true...think on these things.”. I try to see the good in people—myself included—so as to focus on and encourage their virtues rather than trying directly to address their sins. As well, I am striving to pray for those who sin against me rather than take out my frustrations on them in violent ways. Every time I think I’ve made some headway in this area, something like this happens and I am reminded that my Selves are still very much alive and well.

“Oh, wretched man that I am!” Paul lamented in Romans 7: “Who will rescue me from this body of sin and death?” My self appears to be resurrected with every new day—not a desiccated, fly-bitten, crucified corpse—very much alive and well! Meanwhile, it is my faithwalk—not my self—that seems to have been crucified: sacrificed once again on the altar of self-indulgence! How can I ever rise above selfishness and live the life of disinterested benevolence to which Christ has called me?

“So,” my wife asked, as she headed off to work, “are you going to sit around all day and mope?”

“Yeah, probably,” I replied.

Bad choice! Depression is nothing more than anger turned inward. Rage is the same thing as depression except that it is turned outward. What is left? My friend Bryant Callahan has often said, “If you ever have anything to say to the Devil, write it on the bottom of your shoe, then step on his face!” That, I suppose would be downward. But why would I tell the Devil about my problems? Wouldn’t He simply rejoice in my infirmities? There remains one direction that I haven’t yet tried: Upward! Rather than mope and moan, I can pray! I can work! I can go somewhere quiet and listen to God! I can find someone whose problems are greater than my own and help him or her! There are lots of things I can do that are more productive than moping or moaning!

I think I’ll go and do some of those. It may help.

THE JOURNEY FROM HERE TO HERE

As I took my usual Sabbath Day prayer stroll through Santee’s Mast Park, I emptied my mind and began to listen to God. He was silent. So I began to listen to Nature. Nothing much was happening there either. So I began to glance about. First I beheld Pastor Mark Miller pushing his daughter in her stroller as his son rode ahead on his scooter. Creases of concern and joy mingled in his face; Julianna’s head leaned back as she beamed up at her father; Mark’s watchful eyes scanned the path ahead for lurking dangers as Ian expertly piloted his scooter in widening arcs. The love between them was palpable. I then beheld my own son, Brian. As he loped along on tiptoe, batting the air with his hands as he spoke in hushed tones to no visible person. This singularly inquisitive, introspective and studious boy is quite literally his parents’ pride and joy. I felt the pride and affection swell in my breast as my soul enfolded his image.

Only then did I hear my Father speak: “That’s exactly how I feel about you.”

My knee-jerk response was, “But...I’m so...”. Dwelling on my shortcomings, real or perceived, has been a lifelong preoccupation for me. Sure, the Word exhorts us: “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” and not only with respect to others. We are to meditate on our own highest and best qualities and pursue becoming the best vessels we can be to convey God’s Spirit to a parched world. As I began to list my sins, Dad countered by listing my virtues! Every time I presented evidence of my own unworthiness, He expounded on my worthiness!

“Do you feel the love swell within you when you consider your son, Brian? When I behold you—caring for your parents, your wife and your son—I feel the same way. Don’t beat yourself up, Michael. I love you. Just feel My arms of love wrap themselves around your soul.”

So I thought about my parents. Sure, I care for their house, their yard and them. I do their shopping and their cleaning. And why not? Are they not supporting me? Aren’t they making the payments on my condo as I languish in this sucky economy without a job? Will they not leave me their estate when they die? Isn’t it just thinly-disguised self interest? That’s when Dad revealed the Principle of Symbiosis: what benefits one benefits both.

“So,” I replied, “that’s where the Journey begins.”

“And ends,” He rejoined.

Huh? “Well,” I hedged, “if you begin and end at the same place, why bother with the Journey at all? Why not just stay here, if this is my destination anyway!?”

“All appears the same,” Dad confirmed. “All except your heart. That will be different. Your motives will change from self interest to love for others. Eventually, as you grow less selfish and more Godly, love turned both inward and outward will motivate all you do.”

“Is that truly how I am now?” I was puzzled. “I can readily distinguish between self love and love for others! My love for You is certainly greater and nobler than my love for anyone else! You are perfect whereas everyone else is corrupt!”

“Now,” He replied, “you love others little because you love yourself little. You know your own motives are corrupt, so you suspect others’ motives are just as corrupt. If you instead meditate on your virtues, you’ll begin to recognize virtue in others; My likeness will shine from them and joy will multiply in your life. In time, you will come to realize that your neighbor’s welfare is really your own welfare because what benefits both of you most is benefitting one another. Then you will be motivated to bless your neighbor and so receive blessing in return.”

“You’re right,” I confessed. “I love myself little and my neighbor even less. However, You are worthier than all men combined. I love You most of all!”

“No,” He replied. “You love Me least of all! How can you say you love Me, whom you’ve never seen, when you love not yourself or your neighbor whom you have seen? I tell you the truth: you are not able to love Me at all until you perceive yourself and your neighbor as one.”

I said nothing. What could I say? In my heart, I feel that I love God. In my mind, I know that I worship Him. How can He say that I have never loved Him?

“When you were an infant,” He continued, reading my mind, “you spent all of your time studying yourself and your environment. Everything you encountered went into your mouth. Toes, dirt, your mom’s glasses...you catalogued all of these things: “Me; not me; not me; me..,”. Your task was to discover where ‘you’ left off and ‘the environment’ took up. Now that you are older, you know the difference between yourself and your environment. Now it is your task to unlearn all you’ve previously learned about who you are and who your neighbor is—you are all the same person! You are to love and to serve all people as though they were you! Until you can do that, you remain incapable of loving Me as I have loved you.”

“And when I arrive there? When I love my neighbor as myself?”

“It will be exactly as it is now.”

“Except that my heart will be...”

“...Filled with My Spirit.”

So We Have A New President-Elect...Now What?

I heard an interesting piece of news the day after Barack Obama won the White House. [It is not my style to quote secondary sources and then not identify them. I wish I could remember the journalist’s name. I think he was being interviewed by someone on PBS’s News Hour with Jim Lehrer. If anyone knows who he was—and whether I correctly caught the gist of his story—please so post.] He said that Iraqi youth, who had been very anti-American, were now hopeful that America would become friendlier (towards them). Violence is also down, he said, since the Obama-Biden win. He said that people were “cautiously optimistic” about America. What they had seen as a nation of people who hate Muslims they are daring to hope might be a friendly nation that had been ruled by a bad leader (George W. Bush). The fact that Americans elected a black man whose middle name is Hussein is seen as a hopeful sign.

During Obama’s acceptance speech, he made an interesting remark: “Americans...sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.” He spoke of an administration of unprecedented bipartisanship (I’m beginning to really hate that word! Why can't we just say "nonpartisanship"?). Now it’s time for him to practice what he preached: put some qualified Republicans in his cabinet. If he does that—knowing full well that his party has control of both houses of Congress and the White House—there is ample impetus for the aforementioned international optimism.

What he will also have to do is make good on his advertised intent to reduce America’s sizable nuclear arsenal. Those nations that are bent on so arming themselves offer the rationale that, since America has nukes, they also need nukes to defend themselves. Since our conventional forces are easily sufficient to blast nearly any enemy back to the Stone Age, unilateral nuclear disarmament on our part would yield the dual benefits of knocking the wind out of their rationales' sails and maintaining U.S. military supremacy in a world generally aware of the untenability of nuclear warfare. However, those benefits are only likely to accrue if one is dealing with rational people. Anyone seriously considering constructing a nuclear arsenal must at least be suspected of having a screw loose somewhere. It is disturbing, to say the least, that Obama has forsworn “preconditions” re. normalizing diplomatic relations with such despotic regimes as Iran and North Korea. One can only hope that, as he spends time with outgoing Bush Administration officials—who have spent the last several years dealing with these insane thugs, he will realize the rashness of that earlier decision and compose a short list of prerequisite conditions that must exist before diplomatic relations can be normalized.

As I earlier wrote in Confessions of a Rock ‘n’ Roll Wannabe (PublishAmerica, 2007), it has long been my practice to vote for candidates whose political agenda—insofar as possible—match my own. I generally favor support for those who cannot help themselves, regulation of those who help themselves to too much, and liberty for pretty much everyone else. At the top of my list of “those who cannot help themselves” is a category that I call “The Unborn”. Apart from this sizable stumbling block, I find that President-Elect Obama and I differ on surprisingly little. Indeed, were it not for the fact that he apparently does not regard unborn children as “human”, I might well have worked to elect him. Reluctant though I am to support his likely nominees for the U.S. Supreme Court, I am no more eager to support more conservative ones. This is because certain positions on hot-button issues tend to be held by nominees of a given party. Whereas liberal nominees tend to favor so-called “reproductive choice”, a strong Congress (with regard to war powers), big government, and policies that favor the poor, conservatives tend to favor small government, anti-abortion laws, a strong-President system, capital punishment and policies that favor the rich. I am pro-life. That is, I oppose war, capital punishment, abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. I consider someone who opposes abortion rights but favors a huge military and supports the death penalty to be a bit of a hypocrite: war and execution are merely retroactive abortion.

It never ceases to amaze me how afraid Christian people seem to be of the prospect of a single world government coming on the earth. They don’t seem to realize that, before Christ can return to begin His reign on the earth, these things must come to pass. The Beast must rise; his government must come; the rapture must occur; the Millennium must run its course. These are mere signposts in history. They are not the end of all things. I know that God wants His Church to grow beyond denominations and funny-looking buildings. He also wants the world to grow beyond greed and suspicion; national borders and armies must go by the wayside and a united world must bow the knee to Him. I believe that He also wants His children to participate in governments that have grown beyond parties and factions. Barack Hussein Obama appears to hold some promise of being a “global” sort of President. If he can inspire the world to reach out from its enclaves and join in a new spirit of international peace and cooperation, how can that be a bad thing? On the other hand, if it’s all just talk, nothing will really change after all.

Whatever your opinion of Barack Obama or his politics, there is at least one reason to hope: despite the fact that his father was raised a Muslim yet was an avowed atheist by the time he grew up, and the fact that his mother was raised by nominal Christians who had no real interest in religion, he was baptized a Christian as an adult and had a “born-again” experience. He may not believe everything we do—such as, that all people are valuable, even before they’re born—but God has his ear. If we pray for him, God will convict him of his error. Let us not fall into the error of tearing him down instead of lifting him up in prayer. If each of us does his or her part to restore America’s esteem around the world, there’s no telling what good might be accomplished during Mr. Obama’s presidency. If we don't, instead of the "positive change" he spoke of during his campaign for election, we may just wind up with chump change.