Hooked on Lewis (not phonics)

"Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting, unpraying, accepting every half-conscious solicitation from our desires, we reached a point where we no longer believed the Faith. Just in the same way, a jealous man, drifting and unresisting, reaches a point at which he believes lies about his best friend: a drunkard reaches a point at which (for the moment) he actually believes that another glass will do him no harm. The beliefs are sincere in the sense that they do occur as psychological events in the man's mind. If that's what you mean by sincerity they are sincere, and so were ours. But errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent."

C.S. Lewis The Great Divorce

A dear friend told me recently "you seem to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders and don't even know it." I share this not to bolster my running for "World's greatest person," but rather because I feel like there's something to be said regarding where that comes from. Certainly, this is something true to the stereotype of all social service workers, right alongside "bleeding heart." For me, I feel like I'm not under the delusion that I can fix all of life's problems in fact, it's quite the contrary. I also don't deny that I often feel like I carry said weight. My response to her was to distinguish between 1. me carrying the responsibility of everyone else and 2. me doing what I know to be right despite what everyone else is doing. I think there is a curious similarity regarding Adam being the representation of all mankind when he sinned, Christ representing all of mankind when he suffered our punishment, and our actions representing all mankind when we make a right and just choice. Let me reiterate, I'm not submitting this blog for "World's greatest person." But if it is said that we are "carrying the weight of the world," I think that can speak deeply of the intense effect our choices are making. I don't believe that my vocational pursuits in any sense are an effort to make up for all the "evil, etc." individuals in the world...that somehow the population I serve is a victim of intense injustice inflicted on them by some far removed inhumane person and I need to spend every waking moment making up for the bad (insert race, gender, socioeconomic status, title) human being. That is easy to do, and I won't deny that I fall into that frame of mind on a regular enough basis. Indeed, if we believe that we all sin and that whether I am lying or stealing, murdering or cheating, drinking or abusing, or believing I know better what to do with my life than anyone else, I am committing the core of all sin: I'll do what I want damn the consequences. So then, alternatively, I believe that my vocational pursuits are an effort to make up only for my own actions in the respect that I have been saved by grace and by extension I attempt to undue the devastation of sin--regardless of what face it has. I am overwhelmed not because I believe I can't address all of life's problems, I am overwhelmed because I chose to do what I wanted, and these are the damned consequences. "Overwhelmed," in this case is not meant to refer to my emotional state but rather the enormous amount of problems my vocation seeks to address.

At the end of the day, there are no shortage of reasons for why we do what we do. But, we always make a choice. What I ended up saying to a dear friend recently, as harsh as it is, there seems no better conclusion...without God, we are fucked.

Anyway, that seems like enough thoughts for today. Also, we are going to write a book--you, me, and our friends. Now would be a good time to prepare your rough draft. Topic ideas so far...life, grammar, God, Tom Hanks, conflict resolution....oh, also, sarcasm.