Over or Under

In my long personal journey, and in my many interactions with many kinds of people, I believe almost every issue bedeviling our society boils down to a single, unspoken, underlying issue.

Is God, or is the individual, supreme?  

Is God, or is my self, in the position of ultimate control?

Do I unconsciously see myself as occupying the heights, looking out at all of life from a position of being over it?

Am I above all religions, moralities, philosophies, and perspectives, picking and choosing from among them to fit “ME”?

In other words, am I (or something I personally value) the standard?   Am I my sole and highest authority?

Or do I report to Another who is Ultimate Judge of all individuals in the end?

Am I the measure of all things?  Am I the center?  Am I the greatest?

Or is the Being we call God the Most High?  Does He possess all authority and every right to judge me, hold me accountable, and measure me according to His ways, His commands, and His rules?

Do I report to Him and live to fulfill His will?  Or does He report to me and exists to fulfill my will?

Am I self-created, or God created?

Over or under?

I believe our modern, high-tech society is permeated, immersed, and completely reinforces the “sovereign self” view of life.

It is setting the terms for all our societal moral debates.   It is undermining all institutions, sacred books, and all sources of authority beyond the SELF.

And I believe our very technologies and intelligent devices, all brought to us by the Internet, reinforce the unspoken view that we are the center of it all.

I scan the news, viewing all the events of the world in an instant, from a position of having all the arrows of information pointing to me.

This gives us the illusion of having all control and possessing real-time, everywhere-at-once, omnipresence.

I search all the images of the word, have at my fingertips all the articles and websites of the world on every subject–giving me the illusion of omniscience and, of course, all control.

We are each emperors and empresses of our virtual world, controlling what others see about us and projecting a vastly inflated picture of ego achievement and elevation.

Then we hit the real world and fall flat on our faces.

So it is a kind of pampered, overprotected narcissism run amok, where our own personal opinion on everything is the Final Word on all matters.

The problem is all the above is laughable.

We are that pathetic huckster behind the curtain, and not the booming, fiery projection of the Wizard of Oz.

We can’t even control our mouth, let alone our attitudes, let alone our secret self-destructive tendencies, can we?

And we certainly can’t control life’s events, let alone the doings of other people, can we?

We are all in need of a good ego deflation and a deep demotion into lowliness and vulnerability.

We are not in control, not in charge, don’t define ourselves or anything or anyone else, and are not above it all picking and choosing as a superior.

The truth is we are inferiors, little people, and, yes, even unrepentant selfish sinners who continuously provoke God to His face, defy His truth, mock His ways, etc.

We make lousy, pathetic, incompetent gods and goddesses.  

If we won’t resign, we ought to be fired at once and removed from the Throne.

We need a good come down so we might come to our senses and escape the cruelest, most boring imprisonment of them all:  slavery to self.

We are in desperate need of losing the illusions of control and those delusions of grandeur that torment us, and make everyone else around us miserable.

Our grandiosity will be the death of us.   Hubris is always followed by nemesis.

It comes down to this:   we have been living life, making decisions, and responding to the Most High from a totally false, completely undeserved position of aboveness.

It would be hilarious if this state of affairs wasn’t so tragic and utterly destructive to so much that is good.

Is it not a coincidence that the Twelve Steps begin with:   My life has become unmanageable and I powerless over…

Control therefore is not our friend, it is our enemy.

It is what drives all addictions, all idolatry, and all straight paths to Hell.  It is not to be coddled but eradicated.

Most people who call themselves Christians are actually practicing syncretism–a shell of Christianity surrounding a core of sovereign individualism (self-worship, the self controls and defines everything).

If we don’t teach our children and our churches to distinguish between these two diametrically opposed perspectives, and choose to be under God instead of over Him, we doom them to a spiritual death.

And, most frightening of all, we don’t see what’s happening or understand why it’s happening.

But this, my friends, is the great Apostasy of our times.  It is the acid that corrodes everything sacred and good.

It is what we need to be revived from.