“What is this self inside us, this silent observer, severe and speechless critic, who can terrorise us, and urge us to futile activity, and in the end, judge us still more severely for the errors into which his own reproaches drove us?
~T.S. Eliot, The Elder Statesman (Faber and Faber, 1958).
WALLOP! And, so we do. This offering above speaks the truth at the heart of the matter.
It speaks self-chastisement; the cup runneth over with vitriol, and all over our beautiful hands, spoiling what remains of the moment—skin as if putrefying. We can but imagine what this dastardly reproach is doing to our precious God-given and God-loved souls.
This self brandishes the white-hot barbed harpoon as a stick and fleeting peace as a carrot—an interminable and impossible compromise—rank unfairness—a disparity to the human spirit.
Where do we get off with our self-condemnation?
God says, “Ease up!”
If our world looks dark right now, is it perhaps time to ease up a touch and allow the sweet and tender breeze to cool our loins?
A leaf out of the Desiderata...
“Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.”
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.
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