Maybe taking up my cross is not a burden to find and then carry but more a renouncing of social status. But what narcissist I am –– will I give up my social status?
Wether one is radical or one is ordinary or as Shane might say, ordinary radical...who really is ready to part with the status one has accumulated? To own that decision as only the one who is making it can own it? Thankfully my narcissism destroyed my former life leaving me with nothing to cling to. And yet I scour the internet looking to cling to something! Sure, I looked at everything but following Jesus with my actions, and still do.
And if I were to say give up Facebook, Twitter, blogs and then do X, that will just be legalism. But am I really surprised that so many teachers, so called, call others to act without really acting themselves? I mean how sincere can someone be if they tell me to renounce all and follow Christ if they have a mansion, titles and book deals? How sincere am I? Why bother with Jesus indeed! Or maybe that is the agreement. They will pretend so that I can pretend and we shall all argue about particulars. Always discussing, haggling, brainstorming about the 'what' and never the 'how'.
My knowledge is always evolving, ever growing yet I postpone actual obedience to whatever I claim to understand (even if but a little piece) into the future. "If I ever was called to renounce all, I would," says myself, the narcissist. Seemingly clueless to the alarms sounding from all corners to act and act immediately. Immediately? But what if I am wrong? What if the blogosphere lights up with ridicule and renounces me instead? O the horror!
And O that it would! For even that tiny suffering is too great for geniuses like me. O God, do with me according to your mercy! I am well aware that in every generation and also in mine there have lived people who have put forth the requirement to be christian in a more rigorous sense, but I have been unable to join them. No, for me it seemed truer to accept a more lenient form, a mitigation––rather then to admit that this is not really christianity.
Infuse the sermon on the mount, indeed.
Wether one is radical or one is ordinary or as Shane might say, ordinary radical...who really is ready to part with the status one has accumulated? To own that decision as only the one who is making it can own it? Thankfully my narcissism destroyed my former life leaving me with nothing to cling to. And yet I scour the internet looking to cling to something! Sure, I looked at everything but following Jesus with my actions, and still do.
And if I were to say give up Facebook, Twitter, blogs and then do X, that will just be legalism. But am I really surprised that so many teachers, so called, call others to act without really acting themselves? I mean how sincere can someone be if they tell me to renounce all and follow Christ if they have a mansion, titles and book deals? How sincere am I? Why bother with Jesus indeed! Or maybe that is the agreement. They will pretend so that I can pretend and we shall all argue about particulars. Always discussing, haggling, brainstorming about the 'what' and never the 'how'.
My knowledge is always evolving, ever growing yet I postpone actual obedience to whatever I claim to understand (even if but a little piece) into the future. "If I ever was called to renounce all, I would," says myself, the narcissist. Seemingly clueless to the alarms sounding from all corners to act and act immediately. Immediately? But what if I am wrong? What if the blogosphere lights up with ridicule and renounces me instead? O the horror!
And O that it would! For even that tiny suffering is too great for geniuses like me. O God, do with me according to your mercy! I am well aware that in every generation and also in mine there have lived people who have put forth the requirement to be christian in a more rigorous sense, but I have been unable to join them. No, for me it seemed truer to accept a more lenient form, a mitigation––rather then to admit that this is not really christianity.
Infuse the sermon on the mount, indeed.
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