The Lies We Tell Ourselves

Someone may call this art.
To the one who put it together (and their friends), it very well could be.
But not everyone can be convinced or persuaded.
What is art for one person is trash for another person.
Today's attempt to placate all passions has attempted to persuade all people
into tolerating the intolerable, accept the unacceptable, promoting the putrid.
If this is what 'freedom' and 'rights' is, no wonder other places on earth
want nothing to do with such ideas... viewing the effort as clear evidence of insanity.

It's spring in the northern hemisphere now.

The bugs are very present.

I find a gnat in my delicious peach pear apricot smoothie.

As I begin to fish out this gnat that succumbed to the thick textured puree... a thought comes across my mind: "well, it's just protein".

Did I just lie to myself?

Did I just repeat an often told excuse to continue eating food that an insect has trodden on?

I'm not as finicky as before (probably another lie), or at least I don't think I still am.

The particular cultural upbringing I experienced frowns upon certain things as food, insect being one of them... yet insects have been food for thousands of cultures since man made haste with all things edible.

After saying this 'well, it's just protein' thought to myself, I was reminded about how we tell ourselves these kinds of things all the time.

It could be as optimistic as training the mind to look for the positive in any and all situations.

It could be as detrimental as altering meaning in order to justify one's actions... like what happened yesterday.

I was accused of judging someone.

I asked for the claim to be clarified and for my words to be quoted.

Some time ago a man had shared about how he came to a certain understanding with a young woman.

This woman was a stranger he met at a convenience store.

Having found her attractive and perceiving something in her, he says hello and expresses to her how attractive she is.

After some chatter, they exchanged phone numbers.

That same day, he calls her and again expresses how attractive he found her and invites her to his home.

She notifies him that she needs to get her hair and nails done and mentions how expensive it is.

He answers how much a manicure and such would cost, and she tells him.

He says he would be glad to help her... and she arrives to his home a short time later.

After small and empty talk, they proceed to have sex.

Shortly afterwards, she departs with cash in hand... and the two never see or hear from each other again.

When I asked 'what was that?', I heard every other answer except for what that act and transaction has been historically known to be called.

I see and hear this duplicity / deceit / self-deception / falseness all the time.

People find it humorous... and this is where modern culture is currently, justifying the intimate dynamics between a man and a woman in a variety of ways.

I am soon finishing my time in a city where lust is construed as love, depravity as freedom, and every other low manner justified as some right that beguiles passive observers to respect what has always been disgusting and rebellious and immoral.

My sojourn in this particular corner of the world is soon coming to an end, and I am not under the impression that people's confusion will cease with my change of a zip code or coordinates on the globe.

We each have our shortsightedness, our inability to see ourselves in full view as perhaps another human being may see us (from the outside).

We can sometimes see things in our closest friends / family members that they may not be sure about.

It is how we express such things... being knowledgeable if someone would even be open to, or able to, hear such.

We have a further shortsightedness that only God can clearly see.... into our hearts, minds, intentions, motives, etc..

We have been tasked with the responsibility to look after our own affairs (our hearts, minds, intentions, the person in the mirror)... and also to, when and where appropriate, clarify what is clouded among others.

If we have difficulty hearing from those around us who have been put in our lives to help us grow, how much more difficult to hear the Lord tell you about a piece of sawdust within your reach?

When I mentioned to that man that what he described was simply prostitution, this man who I may have called a friend, felt insulted.

He was offended... and this is why I was accused of 'judging' him.

After he told that story, I had asked him if he had considered the following:

That young woman is likely someone's daughter, or someone's sister, or perhaps someone's mother?

I asked him (and all hearers present) to view her (and other women) not simply as an impersonal object, but as the related females we have all around us.

I asked him, if he had a daughter, how would he feel if his daughter was doing such things?

Or if it was his mother? or a sister?

That man didn't like that... for it struck to the core of not only his heart, but all men who have done such things (this man included).

Now looking at my smoothie, besides my mind attempting to comfort my disgust at finding a gnat in my drink, my mind has also been taught to call things for what they are regardless of popular sentiment, or my own culpability and temptation to justify my self.

Perhaps someone reading this may consider this man is simply justifying my words to that man.

However, if I didn't love others I wouldn't care about pointing out the duplicity and common lies that are passed around as common currency.

I would turn a blind eye to people's ignorance.

I would not care that the world's blindness is contagious.

But my heart yearns for people, even those who seem unlovable or vile... because they too are to be given a chance, a moment of clarity to see the error of their ways and the possibility they were made for much greater things.

I speak to myself since this man has plagued my self (and others) with a litany of sin.

I have shared openly my shortcomings with that man (and present company), and heard their thoughts and opinions since men are apt to share common shortcomings.

When someone calls themselves 'good' and says they don't go around hurting others, but that they respect others, perhaps I have a weakness in desiring to correct such delusions in them.

Perhaps it is pride that I desire to correctly declare who is 'good' and who is not.

I shared how even the Messiah, who is declared to be God with us, the Word become flesh, One with the Father, God Himself, did not easily accept being called 'good' by someone.

It was not that Yeshua doubted or denied who He is, but it was out of humility that Messiah glorified the Father.

That response was yet another teaching for men to learn... for mankind to be sober about their human nature, their frailty, their condition... and to be humble, not thinking too highly of themselves.

When I hear the boasting of a man's low-life conquests, whether with vulnerable and insecure women, or with the poor and uneducated, or others that are mere prey to a predator's manners, and such boastings are considered 'good' and 'respectful' in the very next breath, perhaps it is my heart's desire that no one would let me be so foolish.

If mankind has been made to protect, help, feed, and love one another, for me to stand silent when men take pride in themselves and the harming of my fellow brothers and sisters - instead of being ashamed of themselves - to hold my tongue would be similar to yielding so stones may speak for me.

Yet there is a living stone walking among us.

What has happened, for I too have felt the temptation to do such, is that people have grown very accustomed to lying to themselves.

Many people reflect the lies all around them... and the lies have been made popular and have been argued as true.

Whether lies from popular media, to popular preachers, to popular books, to popular 'stars' and their popular lives, people have been fed a diet of living a popular lie.

People are quick to coddle their thoughts, manners, and decisions in accordance with the wider depravity enveloping modern societies.

What also has happened is that the mere mention of this is of great concern to those in love with their lies.

Some people are very much proud of their ways, having some insane sense of 'freedom' where restraint from utter depravity was the last grounding 'hold' of them on reality.

Perhaps the murderer experiences a sense of 'freedom' when taking someone's life.

When the murderer, whether due to a lapse of judgment, or a blackout, or some dark occurrence, or their religion, or their political stance (some typical excuses) does as they do and shows no regret nor disgust nor sorrow for their actions, then insanity is a typical definition of this.

Psychopath is another definition of one who has no sense of remorse for wrongs committed.

Are there individual psychopaths running rampant in society?

Always have been.

Is it possible that society has been experiencing sociopathic birth pangs that are currently represented in many laws and things popularly promoted?

The so-called 'modern' cultures are arguing for acts of lawlessness and depravity as rights and freedoms.

This speaks to how easily mankind creeps back into his own footprint and believes he's discovered something new.