Per George Will, We are addicted to indignation and This is the year of living splenetically. Further, he quotes Eric Hoffer: The intellectual cannot operate at room temperature, and We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
SIDEBAR: Having never heard of Hoffer or the word splenetically, I had to Google them. Admittedly, that's no doubt why I don't read George Will regularly, but when I do and find ideas I agree with, I'm grateful he's available to us. Further, for those in the dark as I was, Eric Hoffer was an American writer on social and political philosophy, and splenetically, I found, means angrily, spitefully - marked by bad temper or spite. The chances of my ever using the word after this are slim to nil since obviously I'd just be putting on airs...which I'm not averse to doing just not when everybody'd know it.
Back to my thoughts. I am taken with Will's words today because this is a full year plus weeks later, and the proof of our splenetic year is in our daily life. Whether we are For or Against...makes no never mind...our lives seem to be fueled by indignation. We truly are living splenetically...and I'm saying, if Will is right, that it is our addiction that is our problem. It may be addiction to indignation, but addiction is the key, and our own personal addiction that must needs be addressed.
Remember Hoffer's words about lying the loudest when we lie to ourselves? And there it is, our problem. We lie to our self when we call our rigid, righteous and right reason for indignation the problem. It is not. It is our rigid, righteous and right lie to our self that is the problem. We have made I'm right, you're wrong the God of our own understanding, and still more spiritual growth a thing of our past.
It was Jung who said addiction is nothing more nor less than a search for the spiritual. If that be true, and I believe it is, then why not put our indignation to use searching for the spiritual...the spiritual in our own self that is living in resistance.
Can I get a Thank You for the other side? For the Wrong ones? And it need not be a heartfelt thank you. God doesn't care if we believe it or not...we say thank you, and cosmically we are changed. It is rare that we immediately realize it, but as we keep praying our thank you, gratitude fills us...and we are freed from our own indignant self.
We are already being led out just because we came to believe....
Thank you.
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