Answering Myself

Long I've struggled with 1) self-denial v. enjoying the good life; 2) the necessity faith in the supernatural when it just doesn't seem real; 3) the fear that behind everything is nothing; 4) creeping neuroticism/ darkness. 

I don't have the answers, but I do have thoughts after a doozy of a year. Seems like "return to first principles" is actually really sound. 

WHAT I WOULD SAY TO MYSELF 

1) The center? key? is to accept that God is God and we are creature. To be able to see the good around us as freely given, not deserved, is light in the midst of darkness, joy, a really good sign. However, our self-centered heart will take the good, not as granted even, but as nothing. Our due. Inevitable. Bare minimum, and not even sufficient. When we are the center, ingratitude is the rule, and envy, covetousness, greed, and every evil thing follow, trying to satisfy ourselves as God. We have the appetite of the abyss. We have something, but not what we want? "It is right for me to be angry, even unto death." To be able to perceive good is a gift (grace!) from God. The first step to recovery is gratitude. But I can't even make myself feel grateful! Maybe the first step is to recognize the disease. Agree with God that we are sick, bad, mean, and full of darkness. "Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of sin?" 

Then, maybe we can appreciate some light. Then, maybe the humility that any good doesn't have to be. God would still be a Creator of good if He took it all away from me, if I were destroyed. I have no rights, only privileges. We die so quickly. That is either because we are meaningless matter, our selfishness the obvious mechanism of animalistic will to survive, or because meaning comes from God, giving life to dust, and our selfishness ignores Him. We in our rebellion can choose meaninglessness, which is unlivable, or to imagine ourselves the creators of meaning, which is illusion. (So good, the image of our center + our desires as spokes on a wheel. The more we place ourselves at the center, the more susceptible we are to "logismoi," demonic insinuation and manipulation pushing us further along the spokes of lust, greed, hate. "We know they are demonic because they are universal.") 

2) Suffering helps to clarify. But it's not in and of itself a good thing. It's suffering! But if it can be used for good, for humility, for teachability, for recognizing that happiness is fleeting, that God is God, and we die very quickly, then even suffering can be blessed. But it needs the intervention of God to redeem it, or it's suffering in a world of nothingness. Our choice is to look towards God. To find what He says that we can "amen."

3) Can't "believe"? Hope and truth are good starting place for faith. (The whole truth- seeing the good as well as the evil.) One can pray for faith. One can pray for hope. God is the one who answers with light, or we perish. It is by grace we are saved through faith, not of ourselves, lest any man should boast. But don't hedge your bets. Build a life invested in the Resurrection. That "proves" it backwards and forwards, by any mercy of God possible. 

4) Self-denial: We've got a self inside as strong-willed, selfish, and unreasonable as a raw toddler. Toddlers ought not be loosed on the world, and certainly don't do a lot of good for anybody. And they at least are cute, small, and ignorant. Our internal toddler is overgrown, merciless, manipulative, brilliantly self-justifying, and unrelenting. Toddler metaphor aside, we are all capable of becoming narcissists, our feelings and desires real, with all others NPCs. God alone can fix that. He can take us by our shoulders and shake us, "Do you see this woman?!" He can teach love and self-forgetfulness where there was only self love and self-centered hate before. In the flesh nothing good dwells. On the road to life, we have to die to the self's supremacy, or self will kill the fruit of the Spirit and impede the work of God. It (self as center) is poison to all relationships, to every good work. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spirituality-minded is life and peace. 

I praise God through Jesus Christ Our Lord- through whom we have received the reconciliation. God loves us- body + soul union (hence the Incarnation) and cares for our needs. He just doesn't find them the center of His universe. WE are the secondary characters; He is the protagonist. And when we accept a world "not vague, not lonely, not governed by me only," we can find treasure hid in a field: joy, contentment, gratitude, discipline, fruit. 

5) Gifts are good and to be received. But a life of grasping is a bad way to live. We will never be satisfied. The happiness will be more elusive. Our standards and complaints will grow steeper and steeper- the law of diminishing returns and the book of Ecclesiastes. All it takes for me to be happy is for everything to go right always. Or, we can learn to be content. Dear God, what a gift, contentment.

6) Ultimate truth and certainty are the Lord's, the Omniscient. Ours is to seek his grace, his mercy, his intervention. Who knows if the Lord will turn and leave a blessing?