My Friends,
I’m taking this opportunity to express to you my desire that you have a blessed and joyous Easter.
Relative to what I desire, I feel it incumbent upon me to speak to you of what I have experienced as of late, but in the interest of clarity, I must preface this discourse with an apology. For a very long time, I have tried to sift that which is True through the rusted sieve of what I have perceived to be myself. In essence, I have tried to conform the Truth to the crooked measure that my ego has provided. For this, I am genuinely sorry - not only for being selfish, but for not presenting to you, my brothers and sisters, the untainted Truth. I have polluted it with my opinion, borne from a period of bitterness and self-righteousness. My prayer is that I can conform to the Truth by way of humility; a recognition that I am not in control of all good things that have come my way and that no amount of paranoid scheming and calculation will bring more good to pass. I am at my best when I can be a conduit for the will of God, recognizing all events in my life to be part of a Plan that I cannot begin to conceive of.
I began to grow sick of hearing myself saying, in so many words, “I want, I want, I want”. This pattern of thought and will found its root in a selfish attitude that turned a darkened eye to those that I had differences with for unworthy reasons. I would stand in judgment of my neighbors whose feelings, sense of aesthetics, and various other externals I found issue with - in the sight of God, nothing. I would say to myself that because these others did not display what I merited as “depth”, they were far from the Truth. Throughout this, I claimed to be Christian. How wrong I was.
This was not merely an issue of not doing unto others as I would have done to me. I was grasping at forum (with the illusion that I fed myself that I would use what forum I’d been given to do good - after the immorality of the “climb to the top” had passed. How foolish. I saw these others that I spoke of to be barriers to my “greater good” because their ideas and tastes weren’t in keeping with mine. I had allowed this misguidance to blind me - to mistake my opinions for articles of faith. I am sorry, my Lord, and you, my brothers and sisters.
I desire to empty myself and become an instrument of God’s grace in my life and that of those that I come to know, no matter how brief our engagement. When I speak to you in future, may I discern what is Truth and what is a result of pride, presenting opinion in the light of what it is worth and Truth without apology - out of love for you.
At this time of year when we recall the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ, it is brought to our memory how Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus with a kiss and how Peter, after zealously declaring that he would never betray Christ even to the point of death, denied him three times. I pray that I am forgiven of and kept from this sin, by way of my own pride.
The Cross stands as Truth stands, straight and unchanging, bearing upon it the Word Made Flesh. As His Hands are held fast and His Blood stains the wood of the Cross, this Sacrifice remains and permeates the altar of Creation. Yet, here we see so ultimate a Love that would enter into our world and assume our pains and trials, taking them - indeed, taking the entire weight of history - to bear on this rugged wooden altar that becomes, through the obliteration of sin by Love, the new Tree of Life. And when God is fully joined to man in our extremity of death, a darkness that could not overcome the Light that is Love, that curtain is torn and He cries out, “It is finished” - the cry of Victory.
God bless you all with a joyous Easter.
Love,
Joe