It's All About Me

Bruce showed me this a while ago from someone else's blog. At first I looked at it with one of those "Okay. You think this is funny?" looks. But, you know, I have been thinking about it all week. And then I realized - that's me. I mean, look at my blog. This whole journey to Orthodoxy thing has been all about me. What do I think? How does it affect me? What about my experiences? My whole Christian life has been about my relationship with God. I'm so selfish in this whole thing.

And this goes along with another theme I've been noticing in my life. I am full of pride.

Tonight we went on a field trip to listen to a Bishop speak (I'm so horrible with names. I don't know who he is). He was speaking on parish life. Let's see if I can briefly sum up what I heard:

When we look at the scriptures, we can't just pull out verses randomly here and there to support what we believe. We need to start at the beginning. So we begin at the beginning - the separation of darkness and light. Christ separated the darkness and the light also. The Bishop talked about how Satan deceived mankind when we forgot what we were. Satan said that if Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, she would be like God - forgetting that we are already made in the image of God. He also said something about the Tree of Life - but if that question is going to be on the test, I won't know the answer. ;-) He then talked about how Jesus is the fruit on Tree of Life.

Mostly the point kept coming back to this:

Egoism, self centerdism and self love is what the Fall is about.

Sin is not breaking the law - sin is missing the mark.

Marriage breaks the pattern of self love and egoism. We are in a spousal relationship with God, not a covenental relationship.

And we are to love selflessly. The Gospel has to be lived in community - it cannot be about self. The purpose of a parish is to love one another so that Christ radiates out and then people come.

I've thought that it is a shame that we don't seem to know how to truly love one another. If we really did, wouldn't people around us notice the difference? Wouldn't they want to come?

When I was younger my dad took me to Sunday School. It was an expected thing. In grade 8 I told him that he wasn't going to make me go any more. The people at church weren't any nicer to me than the people at school, so I didn't see why I had to be with them. (I wasn't a popular kid) Has much changed? Are we much nicer to people? I mean, really. Not the fake smile, hi, how are you? Do we really care? Do we care enough to put someone else's needs ahead of our own? I don't want to answer that question. I don't think I'll like the answer.

And if you are one of those people who do love like that, I'm not saying that there is nobody like that. And I'm not even saying that there aren't a lot of nice people in the church. But being nice and being selflessly loving aren't necessarily the same thing. I'm a fairly selfish person. Remember what I already said above? - It's all about me. And I'm proud.

So how do I change my heart? Time, hard work, and dedication.

Can't I hit the drive thru? Please?