perversity

perversity has many faces. one of its faces is the pleasure a fallen person feels when someone making an effort not to fall, falls…the [first] fallen person is vindicated. the effort to remain standing proved unsuccessful and inadequate. falling is okay and perhaps inevitable. to be a fallen person is okay. no regret is necessary, no struggle, no turning to one’s maker for help, no admitting one’s need and powerlessness before one’s forgiving maker and Lord. no forgiver is necessary for there is nothing one wants erased…the perversity lies not in seeing oneself equal to others and others equal to oneself. that is equity and that is good. perversity is taking up this self-affirmation and self-sufficiency towards one’s maker. it is to mock one’s own and others’ efforts to attain some degree of wholesomeness and integrity…to feel poor and embarrassed before one’s lord…as a means of being witness to one’s maker and His divine and beautiful qualities and one’s need for Him.

if i mock my own perversity in this way, the mocking of the same by others does not bother me. instead, it affirms that perversity is worth mocking. and when others mock what is not perverse, i am grateful to my maker that i am not one of them in that moment..what is mocked and what is praised is either false or truth..when falsehood is mocked, its good for the one who adores truth alone…and when it is praised, it is detestable..when truth is mocked, it is detestable and when it is praised, it is good for the one who glorifies truth alone..

so i remind myself..dont be a person who feels mocked or praised…be the person who loves truth being praised and detests it being mocked..and for this to happen, i should have some clue as to what truth is and whether it is, for me, something praised and glorified..without truth, there is only the self who is mocked or praised..and self-destructive enmity and pride are the fruits of this truthless self..