What I Learned Outside of Church 9/23/12
I wonder if it’s a thing
when ALL of the readings tie together as easily as they do this week. These
readings are not picked by a pastor so he could match them to his individual
message. They are sometimes seemingly random and difficult for even the most
learned bible scholars to connect. Essentially, they provide priests with
options for the Sunday sermon. Today, one message was clear. Maybe it’s because
of where my life is now.
This week, we start in the book of Wisdom.
The first line of the chapter is the key. “For, not thinking rightly…“ We start
out with a little hope and, when it doesn’t work out the way our impatient ego
demands, that little bit of hope dies. Hopeless, we choose a life of vanity and
ego. We become self serving instead of servants. After we have become self
righteous people, we hate to see righteous people. They are reminders that we
have given up hope while people still exist who have not given up yet and,
likely, never will. It’s a form of envy. This hate says, “How dare you find
hope where I could not find any!” It’s all ego. The Bible calls ego
self/selfishness/flesh.
The verse in James covers two
chapters. So… You know what that
means. Chapter three starts out with the power of the tongue. It points out one
of my favorite Ras Kass lines. “I gave man dominion over the Earth, to master
the wealth. But most of my children don’t have dominion over thyself.” Just
like in Mark
7, it reminds and encourages us to be careful of what comes out of our
mouths. “…but no human being can tame the tongue.” is not saying it’s not
possible. It’s just saying that it seems that
impossible. Of course it is possible.
It’s just with so many people not
practicing self(ego) control, it can appear that no one is practicing self
control. Remember, we hate righteous people so we avoid them. We chose to be
hopeless and the law of attraction is surrounding us with other hopeless
people. Of course, looking around us, it would seem impossible to control our
tongues because who around us does?
The end of chapter three and beginning of chapter four we
are warned of the dangers of ego. Jealousy and selfishness are obviously the
fruit of ego and lead to disorder and EVERY bad habit. The ego is the cause of
war and division. If you are only serving your self(ego), then the laws of
abundance will be abandoned and, instead of cooperation, you will choose
manipulation to get what you want. The ultimate form of manipulation is
bullying which, on a larger scale, translates to war. Being around a bunch of
hopeless people, we tend to distrust and bicker amongst each other. Why?
Because we don’t have a common goal/cause. We are each serving our own egos and
denying each other. Of course, we are going to hate on that and call each other
haters.
Even the disciples fall victim to ego. In Mark
Chapter 9, Jesus catches them arguing over who is greatest. Sound like a
dick contest? It was. Jesus took the opportunity to instruct them in humility. “If
anyone wishes to be first, he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”
Even the churches today slip up with this one. They proclaim to the uninformed
that Jesus had a favorite. Jesus Loved the world. That is the entire planet,
not the ‘world’ as in worldly ways. Then he grabs a random child and reminds us
all that giving up our egos is the only way we can achieve Godliness from a
child through Jesus. We always use children as symbol of innocence. We should
also see children as the last time we were egoless. It’s parents who instill ego
into children, either directly or by modeling.
So we come full circle.
Through children we can remember being egoless and hopeful. Now is the time to
reflect on when we gave up hope and embraced ego. Maybe we haven’t given up
hope totally and it’s situational. From time to time we just choose ego. It
takes practice. The practice shouldn’t be selfishness but selflessness. The
question in situations should be whether it is mandatory to hold on to our
selves. It never is if we believe in what we say we believe in. Practice! Ask
yourself ALL the time and EVERY time if you can serve God by giving up your
self.
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