An Easter Post

Here I sit on Easter evening, digesting my ham and deviled eggs (and might I add that they were very delicious!!! I'm no foodie, but by gosh, I love my own cooking!!! I suppose that is a very good thing!!) and thinking about the resurrection. 

You know, I usually have some topic all mentally planned out before I write. Every so often, when I have been at some peak of emotional angst, I'll emotionally vomit on the page. It always winds up sounding the same though, so I try not to do it too much. Yeah, this is my personal space, but I also figure that if people are taking the time to read my stuff, then I should also at least try to not bore them. 

Not tonight. I've had stuff rattling around in my head. I have also been keenly aware that it's been awhile since my last blog post. So I kinda thought to myself, "self, why don't you just blog about it and see where it goes?" Yeah. Good idea. 

So here it be. I've been a Christian for a very long time. More than half my life at this point. Longer than that, if you count the years that I gave mental assent to Christian doctrine for the most part, but was simply unwilling to give up the lifestyle issues and commit to growing as a Christian. Those were years I floated in and out of churches after being out late partying the night before. I knew what I should be doing. I just wasn't quite willing to do it yet. 

I am not sure that I fully grasped the "we are all sinners so Jesus had to die" thingie for quite awhile. I saw myself as a particular failure and I saw Jesus as the missing piece that might be able to fill in those holes that my own natural abilities did not. But I don't know that I saw this as universal. I had always neatly divided the world into "myself" and "all those confident people out there who have a clue" 

I am now starting to get that it is possible to be a good person in the world's eyes and still totally be lacking in the things that are important to God. I've been privy to a somewhat nauseating exchange online in which several do-gooder types were patting each other on the back about how "compassionate" they are. I mean, really???  Yeah, I've been on the receiving end of a lot of people who fancy themselves as very loving and very kind and I have news for you: those are more often than not, the people who destroy your life  while they are trying to "help" you. They just don't get it. I've been mulling over how this works on a larger political level lately. That is, of course, a topic for another day. 

But back to the matter at hand. This is really nothing more than pride. More often than not, people in the world who fancy themselves as "good people" reek of pride. They judge other people in a far worse manner than the Christians who are so frequently accused of being "judgmental". 

 I don't even want to make this a liberal/conservative issue because I am fast starting to believe that Jesus just wouldn't be out there politicizing everything. He knew more than any of us that politics is, indeed, mostly the works of man.  An attempt by man to fix what is wrong with the world by our own means instead of bowing to our Creator and realizing that only HE has the answers. Not saying that people should not ever get involved in the political process and certainly we should all vote, but the ability of manmade systems and institutions of any stripe to unravel the messes that we have made is severely limited. It is amazing to me how many Christians do not realize this. 

It just sort of fries me that people can be so smug about what good people they think that they are. Especially when it is obvious to me that they probably are not. You know, there has been some near canonization of public school teachers in the media in the wake of all the goings on in Wisconsin. How they work so hard and spend their own money on school supplies. Etc. I'm sure that they do indeed do all that. Yet at the same time you have this.  I am fully aware that every single public school teacher does not systematically enable bullying. But this recent incident in Minnesota happens everywhere. All over the country. Kids who are tormented who dare to fight back are expelled while the bullies go free. These people who practically self-canonize themselves are also at the same time driving kids to suicide. Um, yeah, not quite so saintly now, are they? 

People in recovery know well the concept of "codependence".  It's always the "good" person, the "hero" that is also the one making everybody else crazy and in fact undermining them with their very destructive "good intentions". What else is this but sin??? Lord, save us from ourselves. 

If it were possible to be "good people", all we would have to do is follow a checklist. However, not only can one make oneself crazy trying to do just that, but it is more likely than not that mixed in with all that stuff that you are busily patting yourself on the back for, is an awful lot of destruction that you are completely unaware of. Ouch. 

I'm really starting to get it. How it's not about my inabilities to quite get it together in the ways that I have imagined that other people do. It's about surrendering my motives and letting God purify those. And rid me of pride. 

Speak of pride; I've been around this earth for over fifty years. This has given me ample opportunity to observe how people's actions very often do not match with their words. This may be a rehash of what I said way up there, but it merits being spelled out clearly. I've noticed that so often when people make a point of telling you how "good" they are, that's a pretty clear indication to start running for the hills. Because that is the person who will more than likely screw you over in more ways than you ever imagined. I don't even know that this is a conscious attempt to deceive, although I'm sure that sometimes the person does know exactly what they are doing.  I've merely noticed that the folks that truly believe that they are "good people" are very often the one's who are extremely toxic. I suspect it's a function of our old friend "denial".  They believe that they are such nice people. So when they do something that doesn't fit with that image that they have of themselves, they are forced to minimize that. Or they might have to deal with something unpleasant. Like facing the doctrine of sin. Oops. 

I'm betting I get some negativity about this. And that's OK. Because I'm fast coming to the conclusion that NOTHING matters in life so much as my life in Christ and allowing it to be about Jesus and not about me. 

Amen.