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Thursday, April 08, 2004 |
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life because of me will find it." Matthew 10:37 -10:39 I understand it as follows: I have an attachment to donuts. I think having a donut will bring me deep happiness and my desire for donuts prevents me from living in the now, or in the kingdom of heaven. This one is relatively easy to get past if you stare at the desire for donuts and see that it is a temporary situation that will blow by like a leaf in the wind. Well, I also have an attachment to things like cable internet access. The desire for this or the fear of it being taken away prevents me from entering the kingdom of heaven. This is also temporary, a piece of tumbleweed that blows by in the wind and really has nothing to do with happiness. Fine. I can imagine getting down a spiritual path far enough where I can see the impermanence of my internet connection. not there yet! This is why Jesus says that a rich man getting into the kingdom of heaven is like a camel passing through the eye of a needle. But then, Jesus tells us that things very close to our hearts, like children, our limbs, even our lives are impermanent. Yet we cling to them as if they will last forever and it is this clinging that prevents us from being true followers of Jesus. So, the instruction is not to abandon our kids to follow Jesus or sacrifice them, but to gain this perspective that they, like everything in this world is impermenant, to gain a perspective where we can watch our love and devotion to our children and see it like a cloud blowing by. But, oh what a cloud! That cloud is what our lives are made of and we should appreciate it, shower attention on it, celebrate it always. I predict that if we could really see things from that perspective, we would be in heaven. 11:20:01 AM  comment []
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Last update: 5/1/2004; 12:58:10 PM .
