OUR LIFETIME DISCIPLINE

I lined up the loftiest ideals I could find and set out to achieve them. The results were rarely admirable, often laughable, and sometimes grotesque. But always they were unreal, a distortion of my true self—as must be the case when one lives from the outside in, not the inside out. I had simply found a 'noble' way to live a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart. -- from today's "Daily Meditation" of Fr Richard Rohr's quoting Parker Palmer, a Quaker teacher and activist

There. That to me is the perfect description of a self-determined objective and its almost always consequences...rarely admirable, often laughable and sometimes grotesque.  Palmer was speaking of his life's journey, but all one need do is minimize the goal...one's life's journey into what one wants right now. That want way too often justifies itself as a need, and we're heading down that wrong road again.

Our wants usually do distort our true self for by their very nature they are for our own benefit...even our want to do good for another. Follow that to its end, and isn't the result that we feel good about our self? Who would want to do good for another if we knew we'd feel just terrible about our self in the end?

The discipline, the risk if you will,  comes in learning to listen to and to trust our very own heart, the hidey hole of our Father. Or, as Palmer described it, living not from the outside in but the inside out.

This is the discipline known as seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven. Ah, but no, the discipline comes in forgetting the rest of that sentence, the part about and all these things shall be added unto you. That is where our self-determined objectives live.

No wonder it's a lifetime discipline...and aren't we grateful that it is?

Thank you.