A Confession...

"All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.

I never had a selfless thought since I was born.

I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;

I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,

I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;

I talk of love - a scholar's parrot may talk Greek -

But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin." 

 ~ C.S. Lewis

I had to read this a few times to truly understand how to relate to it...my pride wouldn't allow it.  I'm re-reading Donald Miller's, Blue Like Jazz and this second chapter hit me pretty hard.  I read it over today after sleeping on it last night just to remember the parts that concerned me of myself.  I haven't been in a church in quite a few years and no, that's not what this blog is about.  However, it is about my facing myself and my flaws.  We don't have to be in church to evaluate/reflect on ourselves.  The part about the parrot deals with us talking and not understanding.  I talk about love and being Christ-like, but do I really know what I'm saying?

We are a broken people, all of us are flawed.  We spend our whole lives, from birth to death training ourselves to do good.  Think about it, if you never teach your child right from wrong, he does wrong.  We have to be taught that lying is wrong, hitting is not nice, stealing is bad...we are born this way.  We are all capable of the terrible things we see on the news each and every day, but there's the knowledge inside of some of us that it's wrong and that's what keeps us from behaving this way. 

We have a narcissistic nature, selfish, self-absorbed...but can love, unconditional love, change that?  There's another quote somewhere in this book that I remember extremely well from the last time I read it years ago..."Our 'behavior' will not be changed long with self-discipline, but fall in love and a human will accomplish what he never thought possible."  --This chapter, wherever it is, is about our love for darkness, the things that ultimately kill us.  My second blog called, "True Love" deals with this. 

I feel very somber today, very aware of myself and my flaws.  But it's a good thing...it takes this to grow, that's why they call it "growing pains" because it doesn't always feel good to realize you're self-destructing or enjoying the "dark" so to speak.  Instead of letting it get me down, I see it as motivation to make myself better...to strive to work on me and constantly reflect on my downfalls.  Because once you ignore them, you're headed for disaster.  People who get into a certain position and then try to ferociously defend it or build on it, in a way are only headed towards a dead end...you see, people become miserable that way...

 

I'll end this post with some lyrics from the King of Pop -

I'm Starting With The Man In

The Mirror

I'm Asking Him To Change

His Ways

And No Message Could Have

Been Any Clearer

If You Wanna Make The World

A Better Place

Take a look at yourself

Then make a change...

Hahaha...from C.S. Lewis to Michael... :)