(I have been inspired to write a poem about Self by Dora at Dreams from a Pilgrimage and dVerse. I have been thinking about this for a while. In my struggles for inner healing from trauma, it seems everything I read or hear is about self-care, self-priority, self-self. It hasn't set right with me. I know it is important, of course. But, though Jesus tells us in a round-about way to love the self He made (so we can love our neighbors), that was never His focus, His plan for us. In fact, every word of His I read, everything I hear Him say is very different - that true healing, that life comes in another Way. So here my poem. Still wrestling.)
"Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self." -- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
self-care
self-discovery
self-worth
self-fulfillment
self-priority
self-love
close inspection
ancient pain dissection
Me
Myself
I
gripping grasping gasping
though the pin
is already pulled
on that grenade
Yet
I
can't let go
I
clutch the silent
countdown to self-destruct
knowing that if
I
yet terrified
give it up
give it back
hand it over
maybe the next
step won't
hurt so much
maybe the next
step I'd live
maybe the next
step I'd find
You finding me
help me lose loose
Self
maybe it's ok to
self
destruct
"Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with ever fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in." ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, chapter 11
And he said to all, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. Luke 9:23-24 (ESV)
Photo by Jack Bair. Blog copyright 2024 Sheila Bair.
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