So many Christians I know, me included, so often say this phrase in the same context of "me" or "I" or "myself" or "madison," if his/her name happens to be Madison (except me, cause talking about oneself in the third person is "funny" in the weird way...said Madison to herself..(uh what kind of weirdo narrates her own life? not me)). It's a different kind of self-deprecation than most of society is used to, I think. Subtly, but definitely, different. First of all, it's not a humor thing, and it's admittedly way holier....and I am kind of already regretting my word choice of "holier" but really it's hard to find a replacement at this moment and I am probably over and beyond my quota of commas and conjunctions for this entire post, I think. aargh.
And (sdf#fr!) I know it's kind of inherent to many, if not most, of Christian denominations' beliefs in the Original Sin, Jesus' redeeming death on the cross, our need to be saved...and constitutes, basically, the very foundation of our faith.
But truly, honestly, I find myself questioning it so often. I know I'm a bad person - I am selfish and thoughtless and hypocritical, in subtle ways that make it all even worse. I know that, and am in the process becoming more and more perfect, because He tells us to "Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect" (in Matthew 5:48) (thank goodness). But I have a hard time reconciling the beauty I find in humanity with this original schmoriginal sin idea (is this heretical schmeretical..?sigh). I want to believe people are innately good. Honestly, I don't yet know for sure if people are indeed innately good, and probably never will, but nevertheless, I want to believe it. I want to think the best of people and wish to trust everyone to have the best intentions always.
But I can't - I'm not supposed to, right? If not according to "reality" according to realists (stop snickering, you realists), at least according to Christianity...right? And solid Christian doctrine shouldn't really be subjected to an "at least" kind of qualification anyways.
Don't even go into predestination; I'm a romantic-realist.
Hm. Send me words. Hellllllpppp
don't call yoself a bad person yet. it's too early for labels. i'm pretty sure you're a pretty good, if not great person because of all the nice things you do (i.e. playing piano for the elderly and teaching little korean boys SAT vocabs).
ReplyDeletereality is what you make of it, so make your life romantic and fun and great like it should be so that you can get right of the last eight characters of "romantic-realist".
you are kind.
ReplyDeletebut i definitely get paid to tutor that small korean boy, and also i never teach him SAT vocab...almost all we do is madlibs heh but don't tell his mom
It's unique that you're giving humanity more credit for being well-intentioned than most people do. The romantic-realist has a strikingly mature resistance to supposing that if she's intrinsically bad, then the rest of humanity must also be.
ReplyDeleteYou might benefit from comparing how you see others with a little bit of yourself. You know that you need grace, even though you have great intentions most of the time that you try to project to the world. The beauty you already see in humanity might be those great intentions shining far brighter than the personal sins we're being saved from.
i think you're giving me too much credit
ReplyDeletethank you, though, for that and for always being such a source of thought-provoking eloquence in my life. as usual, you da bait, densey.
:)
werd to the man above.
ReplyDelete