Comment by Forrest Curo on 4th mo. 7, 2012 at 10:58am

Yes. No.

Anyone's ideas about what makes a person "a better follower of Christ" are likely to 1) run afoul of what's called "counterwill', and 2) be quite significantly mistaken.

"Significantly mistaken?-- Do you mean I shouldn't help old ladies cross the street? Isn't that part of what Christ wants?"

Christ wants you free to help old ladies cross the street. So that if an old lady wants help, you'll help. And if she doesn't, you won't be grabbing her arm. So that you won't be anguishing for hours about some old lady you didn't help.

Christ wants you alive. When you're alive, helping people feels right.

---

Short poem by Wendy Cope (from Serious Concerns (c)1992):

This poem was commissioned by the editor of The Orange Dove of Fiji, an anthology for the benefit of the World Wide Fund for Nature. It was rejected as unsuitable.

If I went vegetarian

And didn't eat lambs for dinner

I think I'd be a better person

And also thinner.

But the lamb is not endangered

And at least I can truthfully say

I have never, ever eaten a barn owl

So perhaps I am okay.

---------------

Perhaps you are okay. Perhaps your Dad is okay. Perhaps your argument will be okay.

What is it about "God loves you" that people find so very hard to accept?

Comment by Mark Russ on 4th mo. 7, 2012 at 5:36pm

Sorry Forrest, I'm confused by your comment. Could you clarify it for me?

Comment by Forrest Curo on 4th mo. 7, 2012 at 7:06pm

It takes at least a pair o docs to keep one person half-way sane?

Taking the Christian approach, you end up needing to juggle two considerations: that Jesus loves, and wants you to love, people who are no better than you. And so far as you're trying to improve yourself by trying to accomplish this, you're missing the fact that this person you are, whom you think 'needs to be transformed' is precisely the sort of person you're expecting yourself to love-- without transforming them.

Loving somebody without feeling that you need to transform them-- can be very transformative. But in your relationship to yourself, you are considering yourself unsatisfactory-- and it's quite natural to resist anyone taking that attitude to you!

Maybe God wants you to "grow up," not in the pejorative "change yourself from who you are" sense, but in the sense of "develop naturally." Who you are is all right; who you're going to be will be different, and that too will be all right. You don't need to get a grip on yourself if you're already in Good Hands.

Everyone struggles with this, and it's easier if one just comes along quietly...

Comment by Mark Russ on 4th mo. 13, 2012 at 11:52am

Thanks Forrest, I understand you now. Thanks for your truthful words. I was writing about transformation not from a place of self-loathing, but rather from a place of becoming more and more on the outside what God is revealing on the inside.

So many of our actions end up coming from guilt rather than self-love (the good kind). I once had an image given to me during meeting for worship of the interior of a house. It appeared dark and dank and horribly unwholesome. Then a fire was kindled and the true interior was revealed to be comfy, cosy and altogether lovely. I had a strong sense that the fire was self-love and I needed to devote more time to feeding it.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 4th mo. 13, 2012 at 2:56pm

Been there! Occasionally find myself visiting that state... Not that I'm a heap of self-loathing, either, but I'll suddenly catch myself at it--  realize that I've been trying to change myself again; while I wasn't the one to make that really happen.

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