{"id":1589,"date":"2020-08-16T11:38:58","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T16:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/?p=1589"},"modified":"2020-08-16T11:39:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-16T16:39:02","slug":"we-prefer-to-polish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/?p=1589","title":{"rendered":"We Prefer to Polish…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"

Ongoing insights from the sermons of Saint Sharbel (1828-1898).<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jesus proclaims that we are the light of the world, and are called to allow our light to shine before our fellow human beings. He encourages us to keep our lanterns lit, blazing with his light amidst the darkness of this fallen world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saint Sharbel develops Jesus\u2019 image\nfurther, warning us against the temptation to focus so much on polishing that\nwe forget about shining!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lamp can be quite ornate or quite simple. It can be impeccably maintained or dilapidated. It can be polished or grimy. But its ultimate purpose is to shine. A lamp that does not shine will not serve as a lamp. No amount of polishing will help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharbel describes our tendency as fallen humans: \u201cThese lamps, human beings, are interested only in their appearance: they color their glass panes and cover them with ornaments, whereas God created them plain and transparent so as to protect and propagate the light.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tendency to \u201cpolish\u201d is as old as the Fall.\u00a0 We worry far more about the image of ourselves in the eyes of others than our actual love of God and neighbor. For some of us, this is a materialistic focus on clothing, hair, jewelry, facial appearance, home decor, vehicle, etc. For others, it is a focus on our status, career, achievements, awards, or popularity. For still others, it is a rigid grip or narrow focus on fixed way of doing things \u2013 forgetful of why we are doing them in the first place! We cling to our familiar habits because they feel safer to us. The whole point is lighting the lamp. We can find ourselves in a pattern of doing the same steps over and over again \u2013 refusing to notice that the light is barely flickering – or maybe even stopped shining a long time ago. In those cases, someone may even come along and show us what is broken in our lamp and the changes we will need to make if we want the light to shine. Even if they are right, we might find ourselves resisting, fighting, sabotaging, or passively undermining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although these tendencies are as old as the Fall of Adam and Eve, they find especially fertile soil in the current climate of social media. Those platforms, by design, allow us (literally) to project an image or an avatar of ourselves. We get to edit everything and decide what parts of ourselves to present. Then we return compulsively to see if people are noticing or liking the version of ourselves that we are presenting. We compare what we are presenting with what our peers are presenting. We feel saddened when someone else\u2019s lamp seems to be attracting more attention than our own. There is often a great gap between what someone\u2019s actual day-to-day life is really like (including those moments that only God sees) versus the pretend version on social media. Deep down, we know that to be true, but we play the game anyway. We become slaves in chains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever our own version of personal slavery is, the saddest part is that, rather than seeking freedom, we just allow ourselves to accept the chains as normal. We even spend hours of our time polishing them! That is the image Sharbel offers to describe our resistance to the liberating change that Jesus brings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA human being is born tied up with\ncords and bound with chains to which he becomes accustomed throughout his life\n\u2026 People get used to their chains; they cherish them as though they were an\nintegral part of themselves\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we keep polishing our chains, they seem to shine. We are still bowed to the ground and carrying their enormous weight, unable to stand erect and see the face of God. Jesus is so willing and eager and capable of shattering our chains for us \u2013 but we resist! Our chains become precious to us. We let their shininess bedazzle us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharbel describes the process in\nthose who fight conversion: \u201cTheir gleaming chains dazzle their eyes so that\nthey no longer see the Lord\u2019s face. Their deafening racket prevents them from\nhearing his voice. They are so proud of the brilliance of their fetters and of\ntheir clanking that they cherish them. The chains may well gleam, but they are\nnonetheless alienating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I encourage you to ask Jesus to shine\nhis light on you: What are the chains that bind you up? What especially are the\nthings or behaviors or habits that have become so precious to you that you\ncling to them instead of Jesus? Anything that is not God can become a chain.\nHopefully we have the courage and the truth-telling to recognize and confess\nour chains and then to heed Sharbel\u2019s advice: \u201cInstead of polishing them, break\nthem; instead of making music with them, unfasten them so as to be free from\nthem!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we insist on polishing our chains,\nwe will remain slaves of sin. If we allow Jesus to break our chains, he will\nrestore us as his lamps in the world. Even then, we may easily be tempted to go\nback to polishing or focusing on appearance, forgetting that the goal is for\nthe lamp to be ablaze with the glory of Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Sharbel puts it, \u201cEvery human\nbeing is a flame created by our Lord to enlighten the world.\u201d May we become who\nwe are!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesus proclaims that we are the light of the world, and are called to allow our light to shine before our fellow human beings. He encourages us to keep our lanterns lit, blazing with his light amidst the darkness of this fallen world. Saint Sharbel develops Jesus\u2019 image further, warning us against the temptation to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “We Prefer to Polish…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1590,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,56,55,54,63],"tags":[94,139,267,279,43],"class_list":["post-1589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-renewal","category-saints","category-scripture","category-spirituality","category-truth","tag-freedom","tag-jesus","tag-sharbel","tag-slavery","tag-truth"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Chains.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1592,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1589\/revisions\/1592"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.abideinlove.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}