Welcome to Brothers and Sisters, the weekly meet-up for prayer* and community at Daily Kos. We put an asterisk on pray* to acknowledge that not everyone uses conventional religious language, but may want to share joys and concerns, or simply take solace in a meditative atmosphere. Anyone who comes in the spirit of mutual respect, warmth and healing, is welcome.
Quaker belief is that it is prideful to assume the role of preacher to your fellows. Something like Ecclesiastes 4:6 "Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind". Rather it is appropriate to be silent unless and until the Holy Spirit moves you to speak. So this diary embodies the very flaw I discuss. But then I am Lutheran.
Luther wrote that the most stubborn and difficult sin is pride, the hardest to combat. So it is. It is subtle in its manifestations and severe in its consequences. When we think we have mastered pride we tend to be quite proud of our success.
But pride is a good thing you say. Is it not meet, right and salutary to be proud of who you are? All those people with Hoosier Pride bumperstickers, Tongan pride T-shirts and especially this month those celebrating at various LGBT pride events are they wrong?
No.
To say you deserve the dignity all humankind deserves, to say you do not deserved to be belittled due to who you are or where you are from is not pride. But this common use of the word pride is not the focus here. Pride, sweet corrosive pride, which is antithetical to the sacred comes in a single letter.
I
I puts us first and God second at best and the rest of humanity a step behind. I fuels the attempted usurpation of the Kingdom by our own beliefs. It is difficult to avoid using the first person singular. The only reason it is invoked here as a pronoun is to focus on my own personal failings.
The manifestations of pride seem much in evidence. The pissing contests featuring commenters using scripture as a drunk uses a lamp post-for support rather than for illumination (apologies to Disraeli), the all too frequent degeneration of discussions from attempts to enlighten and persuade to the inherent pridefulness of condemnation. Jesus both urged his followers to proselytize and to avoid condemnation of those who chose not to follow.
At this point you might be thinking "What does he know?"
Not much. Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 touches on it
"I have seen the business that God has given to the sons of man to be busy with.
He has made everything beautiful in its own time; also he has put eternity into man's mind; yet so he cannot find out what God has done from beginning to end"
So a little patience from all of to all of us as we deal with Eternity in our minds
Thanks for your patience in reading this diary. As Ecclesiastes 7:8-9 reads
"Better is the end of a thing than its beginning
and the patient in spirit is better
than the proud in spirit
Be not quick to anger
for anger lodges in the bosom of fools"
The Collection Plate
This evening's collection plate is for a memorial fund for a Peace Corps Volunteer murdered in service in Benin.
The Kate Puzey Memorial Fund
For a description of the project written by the Peace Corps Volunteer working on it and a link where you can make a donation click here.
Donate to Kate Puzey Memorial Fund
If this project is not to your liking click here
Donate to any PCV project
and you can choose from one of approximately 140 projects which Peace Corps Volunteers currently in the field are trying to make a reality and to which you can help by making a donation.