A Chaplain's Musings: On Gal 6:4
We spend a fair amount of time in the 12-step community reminding each other that, as we examine our lives, it is important to "remember not to forget" the positives that exist there. That a superiority complex and an inferiority complex are very close cousins to one another. That a healthy introspection is one that is willing to recognize that sometimes things go terribly right.
In his work "Spiritual Exercises", Ignatius writes "Our only desire and our one choice should be this:
I want and I choose what better
leads to the deepening of God's life in me."
And yet I find that it is somehow a cumbersome and unwieldy thing to focus my attention for very long on a day's Consolation, rather than scourging myself with it's Desolation. Should I not rejoice in the ways that the Father is conforming me to the image of the Son? Without any attitude of superiority for my neighbor, ought I not be glad that I am not what I once was? And aren't I, as I write this, failing to do just that very thing?
I had opportunity recently to experience this from what I think must be God's perspective. Our daughter (who is something of a klutz) was busy wiping up her spilled milk, the third glass she had knocked over in one meal, and muttering berating things to herself under her breath. I interrupted her by taking her chin in my hand and raising her gaze to mine and told her, in no uncertain tone,"No one talks about my daughter that way." There is a lesson in that,I think.
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