Eeets not my yob, mon ....
Posted on 07/01/2010 9:03:55 AM PDT by Mad Dawg
Let’s all join in that great hymn:
Morning has broken;
I didn’t do it.
Blackbird has spoken;
It’s not my fault. ...
There are plenty of things that are not our fault, and plenty of things that are. Shall we neglect to improve the things we can improve because they are not our fault? Shall we wallow in guilt because of the things that are?
While in justice, “fault” and “guilt” have important meanings, within fallen humanity they are also perverted into ways to avoid doing what we can, while an obsession on guilt can lead to what one of my teachers called “bad infinity: I’m so oppressed by FEELINGS of guilt that I do nothing ... and then feel guilty about that ... lather, rinse, repeat.
Here’s the deal for people in that loop: You’re just thinking about YOU! Yeah, you’re guilty. The birds still sing, the sun still rises, and most important of all, God still loves you. Are you going to focus on the little, minuscule greasy black smudge of your guiltiness or on the birds, the light, the Love?
Me, I’m a party animal. Song, Light, Love for me. The former things have passed away; behold, the new has come.
God bless us all today.
Good morning. I’ll be hauling the Horde to Confession today. Frank didn’t throw up, but he also didn’t sleep much. You take what you can get ...
Small mercies, even extremely small ones, are still mercies.
Yes. And being up all night gives me the opportunity to pray for those who have real problems. I’m sure the Lord understands the intention behind, “Oh, huh?”
Eeets not my yob, mon ....
A marvelously penetrating observation, Mad Dawg!
May God's blessings be with you today, and with all of us!
Thanks for the ping! Day #44?
Looks like it, trisham! And counting....
I hope it’s helping. Sometimes I wonder. :/
The plan to go to Confession fell through; the secretary hadn’t checked Father’s schedule with him right at the minute she made the appointment. Oh, well. If I get hit by a trash truck, God will give me an A for effort. And we dropped off some school supplies for the poor, picked up some papers for the Raffle Committee, talked to the custodian about storage, and agreed with the gardening committee that it’s too hot to garden.
Indeed. Thank you for the beautiful insights, dear Mad Dawg!
LOL.
In vaguely related news, when people talk to me or I complain to myself about crazy-making childhoods (and I do not want in any way to minimize those) I think, “It may be their fault, but it’s my problem.”
Wow!
To do all that and on not very much sleep!
I’m impressed.
D.V. I’ll get shriven today. It’s chapter - Mass, Rosary, Morning prayer, confessions for them as wants it, non-health food, bidnis meeting, discussion of confirmation.
When I grow up I want to be a contemplative — or at least allowed to take two naps a day.
And thank YOU both for prayers, kind words.
Oh, I think God is working in us. We are knocking; will He not open?
It IS like praying for patience. God does not so much send us a spirit of calm acceptance but a lot of opportunities to practice patience.
FR is an excellent place to notice how proud and vain we are. In fact, I think that will be my morning alleged thought.
Saturday.
I think every Saturday it is good to think at least a minute about the Great Sabbath of the Lord, when Jesus rested in death.
And about His saying that “My father is working still, and so am I,” (or words to that effect.)
Dear Trisham wonders if our prayers are “working.” My first answer is always, “What kind of jerk would I be if I were NOT praying?”
But in any event, I think we must say that it is God who works. Somehow our prayers make one of the materials, so to speak, that He likes to work with. But our prayers do not ‘work’ anymore than the lumber in a house builds the house. The builder builds. Even if we haul the lumber to the building site (and surely it is the Spirit that does that) we are not the builder.
If the builder is a good builder, how foolish of the house to complain, “I don’t want to be like THIS, I want to be THAT sort of house, and I want to be completed by the weekend.” God knows what sort of house it is best for us to be, and His time is more reliable than our schedule.
Vanity is to pile foolishness on folly. In my vanity I stop worrying about the sort of house I am being built to be, and start worrying about what the neighbors think.
When the neighbors fail to display what I think is the proper respect or, even, awe, then I get upset, because I am looking into their eyes to find signs of my worth.
And that’s why I got into “humility” in the first place: because it hit me one day that a lot of my anger is a product of my vanity. And that vanity is really a species of idolatry: I am looking for my salvation not to the God who lovingly builds me as I am supposed to be, but to my neighbors, who however good and wise they may be, really have no clue about God’s plan for me.
“Sophomore” means foolishly wise. That would be me, well, except maybe for the wise part.
Good morning! We’ve had a reasonable amount of sleep, for a change, and almost 24 hours without a spew. Maybe it’s a trend.
Right.
Pointing fingers doesn’t solve problems, whether they spiritual or secular.
Question for examination of conscience: What spiritual “painted possums” do I have in my life?
I had to go back and check on that ;-). Things that I should be cleaning up, no matter how they happened to get that way. Hmmm.
:) Day #45!
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