Counted as dung

Today in Sunday school my randomly selected verse (from the jar prepared by the teacher) was Philippians 3:8, "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." My thought question was "what have you sacrificed for Christ?" I shared, in vague terms, my experience offending my friend and taking several days to realize the self-deception of that moment and let go of my image of myself so I could actually become a better person. Letting go of our image of ourselves as dung is a winning effort, but challenging all the same.

That was all well and good. Then Ben made a comment about how important self-knowledge is. It was not a stressful situation, and I didn't roll my eyes, but I found myself wondering whether I will ever be able to take him at face value. The story in my mind was about him trying to reinforce my lack of self-knowledge as a way of justifying I'm-not-sure-what. He is the least self-aware person I know, possibly excepting his sister Sarah, or maybe his parents. Except, in fairness, I don't really know him. I say that, then immediately retract it after a recent email exchange where his own words hang him and show him recreating reality to fit his picture of himself as a good person. Never mind. I don't have a dog in this fight any more.

Self-reliance group was good. I bought a guitar yesterday. My friend Sarah offered to loan me hers this week while I decide whether I am going to follow through on learning to play it. Even better, she lent me a good beginning guitar book, so I don't have to rely on YouTube. I prefer tutorials that exist in space rather than in time.

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