Pride Kills

Of all the many deadly things that exist in this world, there is no other more potent lethal weapon than the primordial pride. In a sharing among friends some time ago, I have witnessed so hearts break because of pride. Why do we keep our walls up to keep others away? What is with our selves that makes us think we are more than every single thing outside of ourselves? Am I really so important, beautiful, indispensable, powerful, and invincible as I believe?

People bear pride in many ways. Show-offs wear it on their foreheads. The passive ones wear it hidden, dormant like a volcano but cataclysmic when in pressure. But either way, it is dangerous and so toxic it kills relationships. No one is exempted, not even us Religious. In fact, most of those who have it are those who are in the positions of power.

A very good and holy priest told me the secret to defeat pride. "Look at the cross, and tell me what you see." There on the cross is the God-made-Man, the epic symbol of humility. From the highest heavens, he came to suffer the humiliation of the cross. Who is man to brag before this selfless act of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent? Yet we are still so stiff-necked and cold-hearted to accept our own littleness before the infinite greatness of our God.

Best Vantage Point

Psychology states that we have our own personality that predisposes how we respond to the world. In Philosophy, we call it framework. I have been having questions about how we handle perspectives in life these past few months. Some rocky sailing had even made me doubt my own perspective of life (and I believe that was a terrible experience). It is not easy to answer what is true and real in a situation involving so many personalities, moods, and emotions, a hodge-podge brew of disaster.

Perspective is essential in life. It is how we see the world and from it we base how we react. Most of the time our perspectives are healthy and sometimes, because of biases, they are not. Real hard facts, conscience, counsel, and friends help us form good perspectives. Yet even among the good people, perspectives can clash.

It is so easy to find excuses from pop psychology to justify our own perspective. We can easily blame it on our upbringing. "That is who I am," is the best excuse I have heard so far. We can also be single-sighted that all other perspectives except our own are wrong. So how should we view the world? What is the best perspective or vantage point?

I was meditating on this during my dark nights and I was surprised that the answer is very much available (and visible). It is written on bands worn on young hippy wrists: WWJD. What would Jesus do?

We may have grown up with our own biases, some too stubborn to be scrubbed away by good counseling, but we are not left without a guide. There is always the best vantage point - the vantage point of God. "How would God want you to respond to this situation? What is He telling you to do?" Isn't these the questions of spiritual counseling?

But having the right answer does not to the question does not give the results. We have to work it out. In Jesus' words, "leave everything, carry your own cross, and follow me". Because most of the time, God's perspective is very much different from our own and to accept it is to let go of so many things dear to us. This is how the world hates God so much, because it can't let go of its own self and looking at the Transcendent One shames the self-centered.

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