Houston, I am the Problem
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Addiction and Sin in me
Addiction and Sin in me
So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin.
I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.
But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.
So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.
All I know is that it matches my own observation. I cannot pretend to understand God, but this is what I see: People who have moved from one seeming success to another seldom understand success at all, except a very limited version of their own. People who fail to do something right, by even their own definition of right, are those who often break through to enlightenment and compassion.
All I know is that it matches my own observation. I cannot pretend to understand God, but this is what I see: People who have moved from one seeming success to another seldom understand success at all, except a very limited version of their own. People who fail to do something right, by even their own definition of right, are those who often break through to enlightenment and compassion.
Rohr, Richard. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps (p. 28). Franciscan Media. Kindle Edition.
When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.
But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.
It is God’s greatest surprise and God’s constant disguise, but you only know it to be true by going through it and coming out the other side yourself. You cannot know it by just going to church, reading Scriptures, or listening to someone else talk about it, even if you agree with them.
It is God’s greatest surprise and God’s constant disguise, but you only know it to be true by going through it and coming out the other side yourself. You cannot know it by just going to church, reading Scriptures, or listening to someone else talk about it, even if you agree with them.
Until and unless there is a person, situation, event, idea, conflict, or relationship that you cannot “manage,” you will never find the True Manager. So, God makes sure that several things will come your way that you cannot manage on your own.
Until and unless there is a person, situation, event, idea, conflict, or relationship that you cannot “manage,” you will never find the True Manager. So, God makes sure that several things will come your way that you cannot manage on your own.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is purported to have said, no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created the problem in the first place.
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) is purported to have said, no problem can be solved by the same consciousness that created the problem in the first place.
But both Jesus and Paul were pointing to the isolated and protected small self, and they both said it has to go: “Unless the grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it will yield a rich harvest” (John 12:24). For Paul, the “flesh” or ego cannot get us where we want to go (see Galatians 5:17–21). Its concerns are too small and too selfish.
But both Jesus and Paul were pointing to the isolated and protected small self, and they both said it has to go: “Unless the grain of wheat falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it will yield a rich harvest” (John 12:24). For Paul, the “flesh” or ego cannot get us where we want to go (see Galatians 5:17–21). Its concerns are too small and too selfish.
An ego response is always an inadequate or even wrong response to the moment. It will not deepen or broaden life, love, or inner laughter. Our ego self is always attached to mere externals, since it has no inner substance itself. The ego defines itself by its attachments and revulsions. The soul does not attach, nor does it hate; it desires and loves and lets go. Please think about that; it can change your very notion of religion.
An ego response is always an inadequate or even wrong response to the moment. It will not deepen or broaden life, love, or inner laughter. Our ego self is always attached to mere externals, since it has no inner substance itself. The ego defines itself by its attachments and revulsions. The soul does not attach, nor does it hate; it desires and loves and lets go. Please think about that; it can change your very notion of religion.
As many teachers of the Twelve Steps have said, the first Step is probably the hardest, the most denied, and the most avoided. So, the whole process never takes off! No one likes to die to who they think they are. Their “false self” is all they have, as Trappist monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton (1915–1968) wrote in New Seeds of Contemplation.
As many teachers of the Twelve Steps have said, the first Step is probably the hardest, the most denied, and the most avoided. So, the whole process never takes off! No one likes to die to who they think they are. Their “false self” is all they have, as Trappist monk and spiritual writer Thomas Merton (1915–1968) wrote in New Seeds of Contemplation.
As English poet W.H. Auden put it: “We would rather be ruined than changed, we would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”1
As English poet W.H. Auden put it: “We would rather be ruined than changed, we would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”1
