Showing posts with label deception. Show all posts
Showing posts with label deception. Show all posts

December 4, 2015

Faith and Action

Minute By Minute
Performed by The Doobie Bros.

Hey, don't worry, I've been lied to
I've been here many times before
Girl, don't you worry, I know where I stand
I don't need this love, I don't need your hand
I know I could turn, blink and you'd be gone
Then I must be prepared any time to carry on

But minute by minute by minute by minute
I keep holding on
Oh, minute by minute by minute by minute
I keep holding on

You will stay just to watch me, darlin'
Wilt away on lies from you
Can't stop the habit of livin' on the run
I take it all for granted, like you're the only one

Livin' on my own
Somehow that sounds nice
You think I'm your fool
Well, you may just be right

Cause minute by minute by minute by minute
I keep holding on

Oh, minute by minute by minute by minute
I keep holding on...

Sometimes, somehow we deceive our self. We think, almost without any regard for what lays beyond our front door that we are entirely clever, that we keep others around for our own comfort or pleasure. That we are the master of destiny--ours of course and others are around like actors in our film.
With claims that we feel guilty "because we only have them around to feel better," or because they relieve our depression or stress.

How ironic, how amusing! To think that the world needs, requires me, uniquely to function; to think that others are so blind. Maybe the old French saying, "He who accuses, accuses himself," is so much more closer to what is truthfully occurring.
Yet with a view to what others are actually doing, we may gain insight. Is it I, or is it another who is the maker, the doer of the speech or action? Who keeps who around?

And like the lyric, 'I know I could turn, blink, you'd be gone..." there must be more to it than 'thinking I'm your fool,' but what? Who fools whom, and what if the other person also feels comfort and pleasure too--what then? Does that go by the same name to describe a relationship?
Do they 'keep holding on'; rightfully so -- in faith and charity, cynically?

To give a response to all this meandering thought, Cistercian monk and writer, Thomas Merton wrote about obedience and acceptance; he explores the values of both. "We must be convinced that it is very profitable for us to exercise ourselves in obedience, even to commands that are not perfectly rational or prudent. In doing this, we are not blinding ourselves or telling ourselves lies about the case.
We simply accept the situation as it is, with all its defects, and obey for the love of God [the Creator]. In order to do so, we have to make a fully rational and free decision, which in some cases may be quite difficult."

"Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith (words, ideas) without works is useless?" -- the Bible, James 2:20