This morning in Bible study one man cited the received wisdom that "You have to love yourself before you can love others." I wondered at the group if that was 100% true. It seemed sometimes as though what was really needed was self-forgetfulness in admiration of the beloved. We didn't come to a conclusion on my counter proposal.
I'm convinced that a certain kind of self-forgetfulness can be a good thing. If your life and loves are not ordered properly and you don't do a little self-reflection/self-examination, you won't get out of your trouble; you'll just dig yourself in deeper. I don't mean we should be feckless.
"Drunken monkeys" or an incessant judgmental narrative isn't the way our lives are supposed to work. Our motors are misfiring badly, and it is painful to listen to ourselves sometimes. Or perhaps the observing swamps the doing or the being, and we get into trouble. Ask a player to explain how he is catching the ball, and watch his performance crumble. When you're in the groove, you don't think about how you feel.
Achieving "the groove" is hard, and so is quieting drunken monkeys. There has to be an easier way.
Amusements: a-"muse"-ments--things to keep us from thinking (e.g. about ourselves) for a while. "Drown his sorrows in a bottle" is a cliche--and therefore likely true of a lot of people, who I guess are looking for self-forgetfulness. Or something magnificently exciting--sex, or (for some of us) sports.
We can't sit still. So--Netflix. Or chemicals to force us to be mellow about ourselves.
I've never liked the line. There is nothing remotely close to it in scripture, and I have seen it used as an excuse for selfishness too often.
ReplyDeleteCS Lewis does talk about how to love one's neighbor as oneself by looking at how we do love ourselves even when we are angry at ourselves. We still make sure we have enough to eat, avoid pain, keep ourselves warm. It doesn't mean warm feelings about ourselves.