[The following is a reprint of my blog of July 4, 2015. It's a sobering reality that this fits me today as well as it did two years ago.]
I come again, speeding down life's highway, having learned all the driving instructions when I was 15, ignoring many of them now...and asking God to tell me again, "Does a red light means stop or go?"
I know the answer, of course, At my age, there are very few questions pertinent to my life that haven't already been answered. Remembering the answers is not the Catch-22...remembering is on God, according to me. It's choosing to use the right answers...to do the right thing...to really and truly not be as nasty as I want to be (a favorite phrase but my pulling it off can be a tish dicey at times).
And I did it yesterday. I gave over to another (who, may I say, and I wish I wouldn't, deserved a boatload of nasty). But I did. I did give over and graciously if I do say so myself.
Here's the dunk in the ice water: I don't feel all that wonderful about it. I don't have that well-earned gold star feeling. In fact, I strongly suspect the problem is that he thinks he got over on me! There. And nobody has to guess what that's all about. I know ego when it spits in my eye.
I open one of my morning readings, and here's Meister Eckhart, dead these 600 some years, speaking directly to me: Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow -- for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort.
It's that "inward comfort" that trips me every time. I guess I'd best take my comfort in the fact that it could be worse...I could be utterly unaware of where I need look to fix my problem. But I think I'm going to watch Wimbledon first.
Thank you.
I know the answer, of course, At my age, there are very few questions pertinent to my life that haven't already been answered. Remembering the answers is not the Catch-22...remembering is on God, according to me. It's choosing to use the right answers...to do the right thing...to really and truly not be as nasty as I want to be (a favorite phrase but my pulling it off can be a tish dicey at times).
And I did it yesterday. I gave over to another (who, may I say, and I wish I wouldn't, deserved a boatload of nasty). But I did. I did give over and graciously if I do say so myself.
Here's the dunk in the ice water: I don't feel all that wonderful about it. I don't have that well-earned gold star feeling. In fact, I strongly suspect the problem is that he thinks he got over on me! There. And nobody has to guess what that's all about. I know ego when it spits in my eye.
I open one of my morning readings, and here's Meister Eckhart, dead these 600 some years, speaking directly to me: Some people want to see God with their eyes as they see a cow, and to love Him as they love their cow -- for the milk and cheese and profit it brings them. This is how it is with people who love God for the sake of outward wealth or inward comfort.
It's that "inward comfort" that trips me every time. I guess I'd best take my comfort in the fact that it could be worse...I could be utterly unaware of where I need look to fix my problem. But I think I'm going to watch Wimbledon first.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment