Cultivating a just love of self

Here we are. The third Friday of 2025 already! I don't know about you, but this year has already had some unexpected twists and turns and that have made things a little tumultuous. None of these are bad things, thanks be to God. It's not bad for me to let myself be pressed a bit. I may have a problem of feeling like I need to be pressed all the time.

It's disconcerting for me after the quiet of the week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day to "get back to it." I've found that adjustment this year even more difficult than usual. I need to get my spiritual life back on track. With the exception of Holy Hour, it's not that I haven't been maintaining my spiritual discipline. Rather, it's the more difficult issue of practicing them in too perfunctory a manner.

A photo I snapped this morning

A bright spot in this New Year is reading Oliver Burkeman's Meditations for Mortals. The best way I can describe this book is that it is a master course in knowing and not so much overcoming yourself but recognizing and working within your limits and doing a better job setting limits. The books consists of meditations over 28 days. Yesterday's meditation, which is Day 16, set forth the "reverse golden rule."

Burkeman takes the concept of the "reverse golden rule" from philosopher Iddo Landau and describes it thus:

not treating yourself in punishing and poisonous ways in which you'd never dream of treating someone else

Now, everyone is not likely prone to this. I don't mind admitting that I am. At times, I am utterly and unrelentingly terrible to myself.

Reading and pondering Burkeman's chapter on the "reverse golden rule" led me quickly not only to think about the golden rule- Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you (Matthew 7:12)- but also the second of Jesus's Two Great Commandments to love your neighbor as you love yourself (Matthew 22:37). The back end of both of these injunctions is that a just love of self is the basis for how you treat others.

Not an earth-shattering insight, I know. But there's knowing something and then there's being struck by what it is you know in a way that shows you, once again, that knowing, as important as that is, isn't everything and, when it comes to life, to living, is insufficient of itself. To put it in an utterly eggheaded way, Burkeman's insight via Landau provided me with a necessary link between knowledge and praxis, between knowing and doing.

Several years ago, I man I had worked with over the better part of a year to return to the practice of the faith to be confirmed and with whom I had developed a warm friendship, committed suicide. Casey was an extraordinarily successful person. He was truly loved by all: smart, hard-working, kind, and generous to all. I was asked to participate in his quite elaborate memorial service. I did so by incorporating elements of the Roman Catholic funeral vigil,which the large crowd seemed to not just to tolerate but appreciate. After all, it was a wake. At each place setting the tables laid out for the banquet was a banner that read Be gentle with yourself & with others. To this day, I keep it in my den (see photo above).

Today's traditio was a little difficult as I want to keep it congruent with what I write. So, being kind to myself, I am going with U2's "A Sort of Homecoming." It is off their Unforgettable Fire album, which remains my favorite of their many albums. Actually, my least favorite song off that album is the one that was most popular and that would be fitting for Monday's holiday:

Let's not forget that Fridays remain days of penance. When understood and practiced properly, penance, while it certainly consists of taking stock of your life and examining your conscience, is not then kicking the shit out of yourself. For a Christian far from it. Rather, it is recognizing and desiring the healing you need and turning to the One who died and rose to heal you: Jesus Christ. As a Balthasarian in this regard, I don't mind asserting that He even went to hell for you. It bears recalling that along with anointing, penance is a sacrament of healing.

Engaging in penitential acts is important and, I believe, necessary. Fasting, abstinence, vigils, cold showers, etc. are good things when done in the right spirit. Yes, I stand ready to still defend Pope Saint John Paul II for his practice of administering "the discipline" to himself, often on the eve of ordaining new bishops. Is this a practice for everyone? Emphatically, NO! Is it a practice for most people, again, NO! I have written a lot on penitential practices over the years of this blog. With Lent coming, I will revisit this soon without a doubt. I will address what it means to engage in penitential acts in the right spirit.

Opening myself up to grace is really the work this requires, ex opere operato notwithstanding:

And you hunger for the time
Time to heal, desire time...