My dog is laying by the front door. She’s looking at me, I assume, because she wants to go outside. My immediate reaction is that I don’t want to take her outside.
It is probably cold.
It might rain soon.
And I have things to do.
Like typing these words you are reading.
I only have so much time before work. I need to get this done. But then I ask myself: am I being selfish? Is this me allowing my own self-interests to rule? Am I really so pre-occupied that I can’t give the dog twenty minutes?
Excuse me for a moment.
Not only was it cold, not only was it raining but it was hailing, too. While my knees jittered together, the dog had a splendid time sniffing, running and of course, pooping, too.
I’d wager that throughout the day we have hundreds of these little decisions. Most of the time we probably chose ourself without even realizing it. Each decision has a moral implication that could potentially bring you closer to God’s Will. At the very least, each decision gives you the opportunity to deny your own will.
From The Way of the Ascetics:
Naked, small and helpless, you now pass on to the most difficult of all human tasks: to conquer your own selfish desires. Ultimately it is just this “self-persecution” on which your warfare depends, for as long as your selfish will rules, you cannot pray to the Lord with a pure heart: Thy will be done.
How To Start Small
While you should strive to remove some of your more sinister vices, “the big ones,” you can gain some small victories with the lesser ones. Do something small you don’t want to do that you know you should do.
As Christians, we are commanded to pray to God. Perhaps your default status has been one absent of prayer. Start by praying daily to God. Then move on to morning and nightly prayers. And always pray before meals. Some mornings, I feel a bit of hesitation before prayer. That hesitation is your self-will, your pride, your ego, holding you back.
The holy Fathers’ counsel is to begin with small things, for, says Ephraem the Syrian, how can you put out a great fire before you have learned to quench a small one? If you wish to set yourself free from a great suffering, crush the small desires, says the Holy Fathers. Do not suppose that one can be separated from the others: they all hang together like a long chain or a net.
How many small things do you do each day that serve your own will? The alarm goes off: do you lay in bed with your indolent thoughts? Do you check your cell phone before giving glory to God? Do you do the dishes however little or however many there are? Do you take the dog out? Do you say your morning prayers? Do you put others before yourself? Do you clean up your mess? Do you take out the trash? Do you skip out on sugar in the coffee? Do you drink 3, 4, 5, 6 coffees a day when you know you don’t even need two? Do you gossip? Do you make fun of people? Do crack jokes at another’s expense? Do you go to confession?
In general, ‘not wanting to do something,’ is a sign that it’s your Will. Not doing it then is your choice. God gives us the free will to make a choice. You should chose God’s Will and that means loving God and loving your neighbor. Loving your neighbor means doing an infinite of things that you don’t want to do. Bu that’s just the thing — it isn’t about YOU.
Not anymore.
My favorite quote of the chapter:
But if you are fearful of becoming self-righteous from working for your own salvation, or afraid of being overcome by spiritual pride, examine yourself and observe that the person who is afraid of becoming self-righteous suffers from blindness. For he does not see how self-righteous he is.
The idea with all this is not to build up your “self,” but to destroy it. If you think you are doing better, then you are, as I understand it, still very, very lost.