I had an old friend (he's not old, I've just known him a long time)....that would mean that I am old. And I'm not. He put a post on Facebook, asking his friends to comment about the seven deadly sins referenced by Dante... In a nutshell, he asked how the sins of our youth corresponded to the sins in our older years. Here is a list of them (which in reality is the short list):
- Lust
- Gluttony
- Greed
- Laziness
- Wrath
- Envy
- Pride
Uggggh. When I read his post, it began a turmoil in my brain that I could not turn off. I tossed and turned that night, pondering where I have been and where I am going. I wanted to answer him, but I was indisposed, busy, and had only my little I-phone to write with (which is just horrid). So I only said something about being chicken, which I was, being honest. It is not fun to air our sin list and to admit that we are weak.
But we are. At least I am.
It's interesting how the Lord takes you down a path. In the next few days I heard a youtube video by, of all people, a Christian comedian.... Mark Lowery. I always found him odd and a little disconcerting, but most of what he said in this video I found to be true. (I said most). To sum up, he said that we need to be followers of Christ....and to quit saying, "Love the sinner, hate their sin." His alternative was: "Love the sinner. Hate MY sin." Wow. Now that's kind-of novel. Kind-of like the things that Christ said about the Pharisees (the most "religious" people of His time). Christ warned about the danger of being a white-washed tomb, all pretty and white on the outside, but full of dead men's bones. He talked about how we do all manner of cleaning the outside of the cup but ignore the inside of it.
Again, uggggh.
Because if I have to quit pointing fingers and examine the inside of my nasty heart, I don't have a whole lot to say. Or complain about. If I am honest, I realize how much I have been forgiven, how much I am constantly being forgiven, and it puts a muffler on my big, fat mouth. It is soooo easy to note other peoples' glaring sins and to plop my queenly hindparts up on my crusty high-horse. Lord, forgive me.
Sin is sin. And we all have the disease. When I look at that list of seven deadlies.....lust, gluttony, greed, laziness, wrath, envy, pride.... I can say, hey wow, I'm not greedy (well, not that much), I'm not mad, I'm not jealous of anybody. I'm doing pretty good. Lust, well, that's private. Gluttony....I'm not fat, I'm just fluffy with bad genes. Laziness....I am, but only between extreme bursts of activity. Pride....I don't even know what that means.
I can excuse every single sin. I can look back to my youth and think, wow, I've conquered that one. Or like the sin of envy, wow, I've never been jealous of (hardly) anybody. The truth is, where I might have had a sin problem in my youth, and seemingly conquered, I've pretty much exchanged it for another one. Maybe prettied it up, concealed it for the sake of society.
I have spent many, many days in nursing homes, where all the things we doll ourselves up with are slowly stripped away. Where the basic necessities of survival become the only thing that we cling to. Breathing in and out. Eating. Sleeping. Eliminating. Like a baby, but not cute. The truth and the uglies are all that is left. And boy, it can get ugly. Stinky. Undignified. Is this all there is?
Ken's Grandma, Ethel, Babe, of former quilt fame....ended her days in a nursing home. She was there for five long, horrible years. We were in oversight of her care there. Ken's birth mother, her only child, died when he was 2 years old and his baby brother was 5 months old. She had Alzheimer's in the worst kind of way. A demon that turned this smiling, busy, servant-hearted woman into a raving lunatic.
Babe was a very good woman. She was a Christian with a high moral code and a penchant for taking care of anybody and everything within her radar screen. She had energy and a bustling motivation to do things the right way. When her only daughter died (at 24 years of age), she quickly took upon the responsibility of taking care of those two babies, until Ken's Dad remarried a few years later. She was a model of Christian goodness.
Then the ravages of disease hit her, gradually for awhile, and then eventually the walls came down. Disease, stress, old age, tiredness, all those inevitabilities, tend to strip away any veneers we have put up to be able to fit into society. Babe told me one time that she was very, very bitter because she had been required to live all those many years under her mother-in-law's roof, a mean and harsh woman. She worked hard but had never received any love or kindness from this woman.
When everything was stripped away, that bitterness revealed itself. Babe was angry and even violent, once the Alzheimers took over her brain. She hit me several times and once tried to poke me with a well-poised needle. It would make me laugh (sometimes!) because here was this little woman trying to beat me up. But it was tragic and sad, as this was not "her" as we remembered her. These kinds of diseases bring out the ugliest things, and people will behave in ways that seem to have nothing to do with the person we knew. The nurses that cared for her in the Alzheimers ward would tell me that if you have suppressed anger or other things stored up, they will come spilling out when the inhibitions are gone.
This makes me nervous.
I know that I have things stored inside me, things that I don't reveal or things that I think don't matter. Words that are ugly, thoughts that are bad. Are those going to tumble out when my walls crumble? I've been gluttonous, apparently. I'm busy and physically bustling about. But what happens when I get too tired, too old, or I have a fall or accident and the truth of my weight hits the fan? It's kind-of like when I've gossiped and then it gets exposed. Whew, the good, the bad and the ugly comes pouring out and it don't smell sweet. My patience is not tried now in the way that it was when my children were lusty, strong-willed teenagers, but I remember boiling, exploding fits of yelling that came out of my sinful lungs.
All these sins. Lord have mercy. Mercy, mercy. And that's why we need Jesus. Because we think we can overcome our sin, but we really can't. We can muster up immense amounts of strength, paint it all up, perfume it all up, but at the end of the day and the end of a life, we can't hold it all in. It's stinky and ugly. People want to shove it in a corner or a hole where you can't see it. To face it is hard. It requires humility, which doesn't come natural. Bending the knee to a God who isn't us must be the hardest thing in the world. And that's why it takes pretty much a miracle, where He draws and woos us, loves us, embraces us with all our mud and hopelessness. When that happens, we can't resist and at the same time can't understand it. Probably the most mysterious part of it all is that I will never, in this life, come anywhere close to perfection or sinlessness. My righteousness isn't based on my "good works" at all. It's all of Him. God looks and sees Him, not me. Not my stench, sin or silly efforts. Woohoo! Anything good spilling out of me is His goodness. What a comfort.
My favorite hymn's verse 4 says: "Long my imprisoned spirit lay, fast bound in sin and nature's night. Thine eye diffused a quickening ray. I woke, the dungeon flamed with light. My chains fell off, my heart was free. I rose, went forth and followed thee. Amazing love, how can it be? That thou, my God, wouldst die for me?" (And Can It Be, Charles Wesley).
Mysteries.
No comments:
Post a Comment