Suicide Dressed Up As Self-Sacrifice?
“Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when men league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently intolerant toward those not of a like mind.” – Eric Hoffer
Love your neighbor as yourself…certainly could require the sacrifice of oneself for thy neighbor, but only if the self is of value! Otherwise it would not be a sacrifice but a suicide. When self-sacrifice is suicide, dying to oneself would be using another to escape. How many movements are bound together in the frustration of self-loathing?
In this context the moment is unsalvageable and all individuals are truly unlovable because they are selves like the one that is unworthy of love. My only “hope” would be a future where this self would not exist, a future worth having because I would find a self that is definitely something more, something better or at the very least something different than this self that must die to achieve holiness, oneness, life hereafter.
“Love your neighbor as yourself?” is he stating a command or distinguishing a reality? Am I commanded to love my neighbor so that I can achieve some desired state? or, does he mean that I actually do love my neighbor as myself? Could it be that loving my neighbor isn’t something to make into a movement; an instrument to accomplish something, the basis for a religion, church or even community, but an end in and of itself?
When I think about loving a neighbor, I get a physical picture in my mind: it could be the coffee shop, the local gas station, standing in line to get my drivers license renewed, at work, playing with my grand kids, or watching a dvd with my wife in the evening – you name it; the people and places are endless.
In each one of the above situtations I get to love myself and honor the greatness of what it is to be – a human being, being alive. I get to create this huge space for myself in each and every moment to live, love, risk, fail and succeed to the fullest extent.
With this going on inside my being, I get to invite anyone else into this same huge space of being, no matter where I am and no matter what I’m doing. I get to give them the same space to live, love, risk, fail and succeed. If they don’t happen to see this “being-space” space for themselves, I can be with them in such a way to help them create such a “being-space.” (new word; I like it)
That’s a condensed version of my take on loving my neighbor and who exactly my neighbor is.
Loving my neighbor as myself is the essence of abundance: being, collaborating, creating, and enjoying – non-stop!!! What a way to live, AND to be alive!!!
I would be inclined to argue that love for my neighbor is an end in itself. How often I find myself in relationships that don’t go anywhere because we are not seemingly accomplishing anything. How quickly other relationships of mine progress because we have found the ability to drive deep into love for each other. If love for one’s neighbor is not an end I ask, “why bother?”
Giving up one’s own life for another has always been interesting to me because it can straddle that line of ambiguity between sacrifice and suicide. Who decides in the end? I do know that much in this world is not what it seems, including the church.
I think community fails because of fear. It’s almost as if we fear being exposed to each other for what’s really going on. I think we all have an inner lust to have people know what’s really going on but it often goes unquenched. When you find it, when you think there might be opportnity, you jump at it.
I believe that love was intended as an end in itself — to be shared, lived and experienced, given away — not to create a church institution around this concept, thereby creating moral laws to be followed. It seems like the gift of love loses its beauty if it is done out of duty or obligation.
It seems like self-love is a pre-requisite of loving someone else, otherwise one doesn’t really have anything to give. It seems like Christ is calling me to fully accept myself as a beloved of God, so that I am able to value and love others at the same time.
I see the gospel as a call to love our neighbors AND ourselves AND God — not only to give love, but to be willing to receive it as well (in this capacity, receiving love is also a gift to the giver). For reasons that are not clear to me, my puny brain seems to want to make the “AND” into an “OR”.
Conversely, there have been times I have given to others from an empty heart (when I didn’t have enough awareness of my motivation, internal feelings and needs), that I quickly come to resent the so-called ‘gift’ and have ended up acting out in anger. My unspoken expectations related to my ‘gift’ created an internal dialog that led to blame and anger. My own growth has been to put words to the internal dialog, and express them to others. This process helps me to be authentic and stay in integrity.
I believe that communities and relationships fail because we generally lack basic tools for communication (empathy and honesty), as these are concepts that are not commonly taught in school.
http://dantocchini.com/?p=28
Self Sacrifice for justification of Suicide
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/rick_reilly/news/2003/07/01/reilly0707/
I believe the intention of the selfsacrifice is easily distinguishable to the conscience of the sacrificer, if not to the God that is drawn to care for these matters. Ultimately, the greater ‘gain’ is the determining factor of someone who is unhappy with their life to the extent that they would consciously or subconsciously consider ending it. Let’s consider the suicider’s mindset, keeping in mind that the thoughts may not be expressed with words perse; I believe someone undergoing such depression would be guided moreso by his feelings than the justifications he gives himself:
“Which weighs with greater significance to me at the moment?
The pain(fear) of living, or the fear of death?”
The decision whether or not ‘sacrificing’ oneself is thusly further rationalized by your point, Dan, as to whether the self is of value. I would submit however that usually (if there is such a thing), people who allow themselves to die, for whatever reason, would deem that reason to be of greater value than themselves. If one were to think consciously through the process, in most cases, one would provide a greater value to the community in remaining alive, and continuing to negotiate more transformation (this being only in cases where one understands the nearlimitless potential of a mature individual).
I do recognize that there is a flaw in my argument, in the area where human beings pursue an action with the recognition of the possibility of death, yet ignore it. Perhaps it is in the hope of attaining the greater good before one’s death is reached. Perhaps, it is in complete disregard to the possibilities aside from achievement of the greater good.
Some examples of these people would include Martin Luther King Jr, and John F Kennedy. People who at some point in their lives decided that the state of their surrounding community was in err, and regardless of personal risk, it would be worth taking a stand for, despite the risk of death. The definition of suicide is applicable; the 2 aforementioned examples had received their fair share of death threats before they were finally assassinated. Men like Ben Franklin, Paul Henry, and the other founding fathers of America were all told explicitly that if they continued their ambition of independance from Britain, it would be punishable by execution.
I have noticed myself becoming sombre over the past few days, reviewing and discussing matters which constantly reflect the fallen side of human nature. It is easy to become cynical about people and their flaws, and I recognized today that I was slowly creeping back in that direction again; where I wondered if it was worth doing good. It certainly takes conscious effort to remind oneself that there are still beautiful people in the world. And trying one’s best to be one of those people, to be a benefactor your fellow man despite his inadequacies, is what makes living worthwhile.
I would like to shed light on the following story of Joe Delaney, an All-American college football star who was a shoo-in to getting in the NFL. Joe Delaney wasnt a man like the examples above, who had empowering purposes in their hearts for the greater good of their brethren. Joe was a much simpler man, and perhaps that’s what makes his story so great. Altruism is certainly personified by the men whose names have carved a place in history and have affected millions of lives. I hope in reading this story, you may recognize that altruism is also defined on a smaller scale, by heroes like Joe Delaney, and we should set both as our example of how to live:
[Why in creation did Joe Delaney jump into that pit full of water that day?
Why in the world would the AFC's best young running back try to save three drowning boys when he himself couldn't swim?
Nobody -- not his wife, not his mother -- had ever seen him so much as dog-paddle. A year and a half earlier, when he went to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii as the AFC's starting halfback and Rookie of the Year, he never set even a pinkie toe in the ocean or the pool. "Never had," says his wife, Carolyn, who'd known Joe since they were both seven. "In all my years, I never had seen him swim."
So why? Why did the 24-year-old Kansas City Chief try to save three boys he didn't know with a skill he didn't have?
He'd been sitting in the cool shade of a tree on a tar-bubbling afternoon at Chennault Park, a public recreation area in Monroe, La., when he heard voices calling, "Help! Help!" He popped up like a Bobo doll and sprinted toward the pit.
What made Delaney that kind of person? Why did he mow that lonely woman's lawn when he was back home in Haughton, La., rich as he was? Why did he check in on that old man every day he was in town? Why did he show up on the Haughton streets one day with a bag full of new shoes and clothes for kids whose names he'd never heard?
Why could he never think of anything that he wanted for himself? Why didn't he even make a Christmas list? The man never cashed a paycheck in his life. He would throw his checks on top of the TV for his wife. "Don't you want nothing for yourself?" Carolyn would ask Joe.
"Nah," he'd say. "You just take care of you and the girls."
"Nothing?"
Well, if you could give me a little pocket change for the week, I'd appreciate it."
Why didn't he ask somebody else to help those three kids that day? After all, there were hundreds of people at the park, and not another soul dived into that pit. Nobody but Delaney, one guy who shouldn't have.
The boys in that pit were struggling to stay afloat. They were two brothers -- Harry and LeMarkits Holland, 11 and 10, respectively -- and a cousin, Lancer Perkins, 11. Of course, LeMarkits was always with Harry. He idolized his big brother. A water park adjacent to Chennault was staging a big promotion with free admission that day, and the boys had wandered over to the pit and waded into the water. Like Delaney, they couldn't swim.
So much of it doesn't make sense. Why hadn't the pit -- a huge rain-filled hole that was left after the dirt had been dug out and used to build a water slide -- been fenced off from the public? Who knew that four feet from the edge of the water the hole dropped off like a cliff to about 20 feet deep?
LeMarkits has said that he remembers the water filling his lungs, the sensation of being pulled to the cold bottom, when all of a sudden a huge hand grabbed his shoulder and heaved him out of the deep water. Delaney dived for the other two boys, sinking below the surface. Folks along the bank waited for him to come up, but he never did. Harry and Lancer drowned with him.
As much as you might hope that LeMarkits has done something with the gift Delaney gave him, so far he hasn't. In an interview with the Philadelphia Daily News two years ago, LeMarkits said he has been tortured by the thought that he got to live and Harry didn't. He said he made his mom sell Harry's bike, bed and toys. He even burned Harry's clothes, as if fire could burn his brother from his heart. But it never did. Thirty years old now, LeMarkits got out of jail in May after serving time for distribution of cocaine. There's still time for him to do something wonderful with the life Delaney gave him. After all, Delaney was doing wonderful things with the one he gave up.
He was buried on the Fourth of July, 20 years ago. A telegram from President Reagan was read at the memorial service. The Presidential Citizens Medal was awarded posthumously. Three thousand people came to his funeral. A park in Haughton was named after him. No Chiefs player has worn number 37 since. The 37 Forever Foundation, a nonprofit group in Kansas City, honors him to this day by providing free swimming lessons to inner-city kids.
"I wish they'd had that for Joe and me when we were kids," Carolyn says glumly. She thinks of her Joe every day. She can't help it. Their three daughters and four grandkids remind her of him constantly. There is a pause. "I never thought we wouldn't grow old together."
She's only been on two dates since Joe died. Twenty years, two dates. "Why should I?" she says. "I just keep comparing them to Joe, and they can't stand up. Nobody in the world is like my Joe."
Anyway, the point is, next time you're reading the sports section and you're about half-sick of DUIs and beaten wives, put it down for a second and remember Joe Delaney, who, in that splinter of a moment, when a hero was needed, didn't stop to ask why.
Issue date: July 7, 2003
Rick Reilly, a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, has been voted National Sportswriter of the Year eight times. His latest book, Who's Your Caddy?, his misadventures caddying for tour pros like Jack Nicklaus and David Duval, hit bookstores in May. He is also the author of the best-selling compliation The Life of Reilly, and the cult classic golf novel, Missing Links, as well as five other books.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/rick_reilly/news/2003/07/01/reilly0707/ ]
Dan, feel free to edit out the top 3 lines of the above post. Those were just some notations I was making in writing that posting. (and delete this post too)
Holy Smokes! Great blogging above. Thanks everyone. After-thoughts galore you have stirred in me, one of the reasons it is a priviledge to blog like this!!!
Analysis #2~~~”Love your neighbor as yourself”~~~
This can be where issues of translation undermines the semantics of a statement. To overanalyze the choice of words, as I will be doing, can lose its momentum when one presents the argument that the english words presented have been refined or altered through the many editions the Bible has undergone, thus possibly losing Jesus’s original intent of meaning.
Nevertheless, this may not restrict us to an unfruitful examination of the statement, as there is much meaning available to be deconstructed and defined from the english version of the quote. May I offer the perspectives that this statement has availed to me.
~~”Love your neighbour AS yourself”~~
In my usual style, I will take a big step back and look at the general context of the message, in this case at the time it was delivered. I do not know what human nature was like when the above words were spoken from the mouth of Jesus, but I will do my best to consider what I Do know. I submit that the general sociological condition, the pattern of human behaviour, does not really change much over time. I once heard a public speaker say: “There are three kinds of people in this world: People who make things happen; People who watch things happen; and People who say ‘what the hell happened?’ “. I bring that quote up as a statement we can use to easily distinguish the ways we can breakdown a society by the mindsets of the people within it, hoping to see mirrors in today’s world and Jesus’s world back in the day.
So of the 3 groups and their involvement in change: Leaders who bring about transformation are of the first group, and often have the smallest percentage in the community; the majority of followers and outsiders to the community, can be said to make up the 2nd group; and the outside population ignorant to the community and its’ impact would comprise the last group, who are not aware of the change until after it has taken place. We can see many examples of this around us, and I believe the world 2 millenia ago was quite similar: for the movement he was directing, Jesus, his disciples, and a handful of followers were leading the change; the majority of his followers were watching the change, and the uninvolved majority of the world slowly came to realize ‘what the hell happened”.
I heard knowledgeable man once say ‘one can only give what one has within himself’. The quote holds much value when considering the above. People do not give what they feel they lack themselves. The followers in the above example could truly not do much more than just watch, for despite they believed Jesus believed in his teachings, perhaps they didnt believe enough themselves. We see this often with adults and their methods of parenting. Many parents preach continuously what think they know are virtues; yet when push comes to shove, they are revealed to be hypocrits.
I’ve noticed with people who’ve undergone many troubling difficulties in succession. Sometimes the trust they had in others is broken, and thus they lose their trust in people in general, and further than that are become untrustworthy themselves. So in keeping with that pattern of thought, perhaps the meaning of the quote is: “Love your neighbour AS WELL AS yourself”.
~~The Problems of Failing to Love Yourself Properly~~
A concept that I first learned from Covey’s ’7 Habits’ book was the Abundance versus Scarcity mentality. It is the base principle behind the quote ‘one can only give what one has within himself’. In today’s society of broken families, I see and read of many adults who have insecurities and problems with self-esteem which were caused by the lack of unconditional love in any parents/caregivers in their lives. Because one cannot love others unless she loves herself FIRST, problems of self esteem often cause parents/spouses and people in general to give love with conditions. Parents may subconsciously give the message: “I’ll show love to you only if you’ve done as i’ve said, get good grades, etc” (which, by they way, are signs of the parent using the child as demonstration of personal social status; again discussed in the 7 Habits). Spouses/lovers may give the message: “I’ll love you only if you love me. If you reject me in anyway (break up; divorce) I will hate you”. And to the people around us, friends and acquaintances, how often do we give the message: “I’ll respect (love) you only if you respect me as well.”
~~Closing Thoughts~~
Although we can grieve for a moment the fact that unconditional love was not present in our upbringing, it is not healthy as adults to victimize ourselves because of circumstances not under our control. So one message best not to be ignored from the quote is “Love your neighbour as well as yourself”. When Love is indeed in Abundance in our lives, flowing from ourselves to others, and equally from ourselves to our fragile, erring selves, only then do we begin to feel truly joyful, confident, and gain the ability to Love simply for Love’s sake.
William,
Your analytical abilities are quite impressive and in this case I can see how you land on your conclusion, which I would challenge in that it assumes Human ability is tied to a very static logical view of love. You conclude:
“So one message best not to be ignored from the quote is “Love your neighbour as well as yourself”. When Love is indeed in Abundance in our lives, flowing from ourselves to others, and equally from ourselves to our fragile, erring selves, only then do we begin to feel truly joyful, confident, and gain the ability to Love simply for Love’s sake.”
If this was so, then what do you make of the testimonies of people like Victor Frankyl, Corrie Tenboom and Dietrich Boenhoffer and those who were miraculously impacted by their lives? Each had been stripped of their lives in every respect. Frankyl and Tenboom both lost their loved ones in concentration camps and in the midst of utter death. From the devastation of Nazi and Russian Concentration Camps they brought forth an abundant love and nurture that impacted the lives of those who were dying from the devastating surroundings in such profound ways that their captures were powerless to stop their influence except to either release them or kill them. The stories of those who grew up in complete devastation and who go on to contribute powerfully abundant and joyful spirits to communities are easy to find.
I believe they testify to a completely antithetical idea of the human spirit and capacity. They show that in great adversity there are those, despite their circumstances or maybe because of their circumstances or upbringing and complete desolation find something inside themselves they never experienced from others, but had to give to others because it didn’t come from their circumstances but from some other source beyond themselves. Something that was paradoxically missing in their live’s circumstances but came through them, like a spirit or divine (beyond logic) resource, which transcends the despair of circumstance and touches the eternal life of the the human family.
I have experienced it in my own life, witnessed it in my own community and read about it in the lives of human beings who have come before me.
However, this isn’t available to the reasonable or the scientific approach to life. It isn’t something that can be calculated or contained in a linear logic. It is beyond logic, transcends definition and yet is as real or even more concrete than the visible world we encounter; it is Being. We cannot unequivocally define or measure kindness, joy, hope, love, but we know them when we see them. In fact, great adversity often brings them to the surface of the human soul much like what happened with Oscar Schindler.
What if the ability to tap this invisible world or kingdom requires a conversation that transcends logic? What conversation might that be? Consider the way GK Chesterton describes the kind of courage it takes to transcend our circumstances to love;
“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. “He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,” is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes…a soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine.” G.K. Chesterton
In closing, I choose a conversation which embraces the paradox of human life. I acknowledge our frail condition but not at the expense of our eternal presence.
Hehe… It is in such conversations that I admire your frankness and also relish vainly in our likeness of thought. In the theorem I am developing in my mind for my future work in the social arts, I see 4 levels of consciousness. I do need to thank you for you directness in your questioning as it has allowed me to question myself and my theory.
It’s nothing new as far as I know, as the famed Maslow has already lined up the said pattern, now that I think about it. It’s my theorem of human fulfillment, and instead of Maslow’s pyramid shaped hierarchy, I see the structure of outer and inner layers of our being.
So far, my mental diagram sees 4 layers, the outer wrapping around the inner much like the layers of an onion:
Physical-
Mental/Intellectual-
Emotional-
Spiritual-
To refrain from my usual dissertation, I’ll skip the outer layers and go straight to the ‘core’, which i referred to in my first posting on Faith and Belief. The core of human fulfillment lies in Emotional Discipline and Spiritual Discipline. Emotional Discipline is well generalized with the concepts of EQ; the human fight-or-flight response can be avoided when moving to a different level of thought, such as rationalization at the mental conscious level. Spiritual Discipline is a bit harder for me to explain as I am still trying to define it for myself. I can only describe the spiritual level as the level of thought which engages incredible peace of mind. This level can be described with Carl Jung’s Individuation: Experiencing a Oneness of self that both distinguishes oneself from the community, yet also feels inextricably tied to the community as a whole.
“Love your neighbour as well as yourself” is a state of mind that would seem to me as being on the outer fringes of the Spiritual layer, similar to the idea of turning the other cheek. Self-actualization on the level of Victor Frankl would seem to me not to be so far off, but to draw from deeper than that, at the layer of oneness with the universe/God.
When one loves another, it can stem from Emotional layer. This is a layer mostly affected by the limbic system of the brain; it’s the part of the brain between the rational mind and the brain stem which is responsible for our animalistic behaviours. Thus to love on that level is to love because we need love, not to love for love’s sake. If however, we love from the Spiritual layer, which I believe stems from the gray matter purported to make up much of the mass of the heart, it is a different kind of love. One that doesnt require the condition of someone loving them first before returning the love; a feeling not out of need, but of genuine caring and appreciation.
As I mentioned in the previous posting, most people give love only if they are shown love in return. My consideration of Jesus advising his followers to ‘love those around you AND yourself’ is assuming that Jesus, on some level, recognizes the differentiating facets of love, and also recognizes the average human being does not see things on such a level. Thus, using a pragmatic approach, to influence a follower’s gift of love to the proper spiritual kind could perhaps be conveyed by telling him to love his neighbour and himself at the same time, thus fulfilling and overcoming the man’s usual need for reciprocation of the feeling. The source of spiritual love does not need to be understood before it can be felt or shared.
I agree that the source of power from which Victor Frankl drew from was the power of spirit, in the absence of love from the outside world. I could argue that it is possible he used the love he received prior to starting such an ordeal, but that is not the central idea of my beliefs. To count on external sources being present and reciprocating is not the ultimate form of strenght in love, as you have so clearly defined. At such times, if one has the maturity to search for it, one can only find it within himself, and from there, I believe, lies the pathway to God. For Frankl, on the physical layer of being, there was not only a lack of fulfillment and calm, it was replaced by quite a horrendous and tortureful arena. On a mental layer, no rationalization alone could come to the conclusion that Victor would survive the ordeal. On an emotional layer, a weaker man/woman would have succumbed to the unending animalistic survival-based emotions that such an environment would trigger. The only salvation is in meditation within oneself, at which point one could find, as Victor Frankl did, a serenity that some describe as Finding God, others Zen, Enlightenment, or more recently, Oneness with the Universe, the Cosmos. From that awareness comes ‘Strength’ which seems unending at times, and perhaps is. I believe that is what supported him through the crisis and epitomizes human power of will, which interestingly enough does not come from the human alone.
As you have, I choose for myself the recognition of this Eternal Presence, and also find fulfillment acknowledging Him, and the love from Him is a great source of my strength. I hope one day to bring about a theory which can clearly define all levels of fulfillment and strength, to help people find their way to the innermost source of enjoyment and enrichment that I’ve started to recognize, that of spiritual enlightenment.
This is what I write after trying to keep it short?
Shakespeare said ‘Brevity is the soul of Wit’… I should ascert from experience that ‘Vanity is the soul of Longwindedness’
I grabbed the following from the tail end of Dan’s blog and the opening statement of Williams blog:
Dan:
“In closing, I choose a conversation which embraces the paradox of human life. I acknowledge our frail condition but not at the expense of our eternal presence.
William Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 7:23 am
Hehe… It is in such conversations that I admire your frankness and also relish vainly in our likeness of thought. In the theorem I am developing in my mind for my future work in the social arts, I see 4 levels of consciousness.
It makes me smile. Dan chooses “a conversation which embraces the paradox of human life.”
William responds “It is in such conversations that I admire your frankness and also relish vainly in our likeness of thought. In the theorem I am developing in my mind…”
I fail to see the likeness between Dan and William.
Dan chooses the dynamo of conversation, and William, expressing likeness between himself and Dan, chooses the static of a theorem.
Based on their blogs above, I see no resemblance between Dan’s come-from, dynamic conversation, and Williams come-from, static theorem development.
Am I missing something here?
I would agree that perhaps our styles of approach towards the conversation with our spiritual sides are different. By likeness of thought, my meaning was likeness in direction/content of thought.
Personally, I wouldn’t cut statements from the blog to make comparisons in verbage. As each person experiences his spirituality and approaches it in different ways, they are just as likely to communicate the experience in different styles of speech, as you have pointed out. Rather, it would be more effective to make a comparison of the blog content as a whole.
Perhaps it is in my vanity in trying to compare my thought process to Dan’s, whom I respect, which has led me to believe that I share a viewpoint with him. It is quite natural for all human beings, myself included, to try to liken themselves to a respected figure. Bias or not, I do believe that the direction of his thinking after reading my 1st post on Love, was in line with the subcontext I had written it from, which is what led me to make that comment.
The similarity in perspective I believed to see was this: If the message from Jesus was “love your neighbour and yourself”, that only satisfies on a superficially spiritual level. As Dan rebutted, it doesnt satisfy at the Deepest level, the one where the great men and women listed by Dan must’ve drawn from, when overcoming their adversities. I drew the similarity because in my theorem the love outwards to community from the place of the spirit first requires the strength of the spirit, which after reading Dan’s posting I realised would come from the recognition of Love from God, or whichever way you want to interpret that ‘inner enlightenment and fulfillment’.
All in all, I don’t think you should think too deeply into my offhand comments like that comparison. I’m just trying to give a flow to the article from the posting above, and really, indulging my ego. As much as I post about inner confidence and all that, having a theorem and all, I’m as human as the next guy. I’ll be strong sometimes and weak some others. Humble sometimes and arrogant some others. If you read between the lines of that comment ‘relish vainly in the likeness of our thought’, the emotional place that I made that from was “look at me. I must be so smart because I seem to think like Dan, who IS smart in the social arena of this blog”. It’s not the first time I tried to capture some glory, whether it was there or not, and that’s part of the flaw of being human, I guess. To paraphrase, JeanMarie Jobs said “we’re really addicted to our own thoughts, our own beliefs”. And it’s true: I DO like to hear the sound of my own voice and my self-perceived intelligence.
There are other things more worth our analysis than my egotistical nature, haha, but it’s good you brought it up. It allowed me to reconsider my conversation with myself, and how it affects my outward communication, so… Thanks.
William,
At first I was afraid of tackling your posts as I saw their length, and my thoughts that they were requiring more time than I had at the moment. But as I read, my mood quickly changed as the collection of words as a whole weaved an intricate fabric of complexity, yet beauty, meaning and hope for me. Here are some points which resonated, which I would like to expand on:
* “At such times, if one has the maturity to search for it, one can only find it within himself, and from there, I believe, lies the pathway to God.”
* “The only salvation is in meditation within oneself, …”
In my current spiritual discipline of choosing to “be” and interact with people in conversation, through what I am calling “Compassionate Connecting”, I am finding inspiration and value on focusing on my needs that motivate my thoughts and actions, and which create feelings based on if the needs are being met or not. Needs which start with physical needs such as air, water, shelter, but span all the way to the transcendent needs such as beauty, harmony, balance and life. Not to mention the needs for acceptance, contribution, empathy, connection and love, and all other interdependent needs. I could go on exploring the various categories of needs, and miss the point that I am trying to make (though I would enjoy continuing this dialog in a different medium).
My point is that these needs are what makes us human and give use life, and while they are indeed inside of us, that they point to the intelligence and love which designed us — who I choose to call “God”, but I am not hung up on that label. The inherent beauty of these needs is something that we constantly have access to within ourselves, and they point to a greater power than ourselves or anyone around us which may be creating difficult circumstances for us. Just think of the kind of being which could design such beautiful needs as authenticity, freedom, meaning, trust, play, love into our hearts. I sometimes find it helpful to ponder on what might be the motivation of such a being for weaving these needs into me.
And so, as I become aware of these things, and choose to use this beauty in conversation with others, regardless of the circumstances in which I might be in, it opens up tremendous possibilities which were not visible before. By connecting to these needs and celebrating their beauty, I can celebrate the being that made me and everything around me. As I do this, I am likely to feel a joy and peace that is not possible without the influence of the divine. The spirit that comes alive when this beauty is shared between two or more people in Conversation, is what I choose to call “Christ”.
Thanks for your contribution, and for stimulating this dialog.