The problem with repentance is that, more than not knowing, we are actually unable to given the size, the weight, and obsession with our egos.
Ego and Repentance
The obsession with the ego causes us to place all of our care, our energy, our plans, our desires in its frail pathetic hands. Narcissus is transfixed with himself and thus cannot do anything else but stare at his own image.
Preserving the ego, the false image, the unholy icon of our own making, is what keeps us from truly repenting.
Why?
Fear.
Fear of what?
Of becoming other than the made up self we desperately and tirelessly struggle at to portray to the world.
It’s the terrifying question of, What or who will I become?
This was my greatest fear just before baptism. Who will I become if I go through with it; if I enter the sacramental life of the Body of Christ, the Church; if I truly become a new creation?
Will I become one of those zealots?
Will my family hate me and leave me destitute and alone?
Am I willing to lose my family for Christ’s sake?
Will I become some kind of holy fool?
Where will this journey ultimately take me?
But those questions before baptism don’t go away after baptism–in fact, they are just the beginning.
Everyday the question sits before us: who will I become?
Will I choose today to become a saint, or will I paint another layer on the mask? Will I struggle to serve Christ, to take up my cross and walk or will I make graven images of myself that I parade around so people will admire me, think about me, talk about me, post my name on academic or literary journals, or plaster my icon, my picture, across social media …
It’s the fear that breaks us.
The turn is repentance, which means to turn away from your fake unholy icon to Christ who is the True Icon of humanity, until seeing Him becomes looking into the mirror; and seeing Him is looking into the faces of everyone around you. And seeing His Image is seeing Him reflected in all creation.
Beauty and Repentance
Turing away from yourself, your ego, the unholy graven image of yourself to behold the true Image of yourself Who is Christ, opens you to Beauty, to Goodness, to Truth. And the more you behold Him in everyone and everything, the more you are open to Beauty, because He is Beauty.
That is true artistry.
You want to become an artist, become a saint, bear more of the Image you have truly been created in.
We are not created to be Narcissus.
We are created to be truly fully ourselves, which simply means in our own unique way bearing the Image of The Way.
Realizing the fake image of ourselves is bankrupt and has no capacity to lift us up out of the struggle of life.
Idols have no agency: they need to be fed, they need to be clothed, and if they fall down they need a person to pick them up again. They are pathetic.
The idols we make of ourselves are the same.
And until we see how pathetic our idols are, we will be stuck looking after them–and o’ the time and cost and crazy-making we go through to fawn after the little idols of ourselves.
Like the TV show American Idol:
No thanks.
May we ever turn to the Lord away from love of ourselves to love for Him. And may He grant us the true spirit of repentance, which is the Courage and Love and Hope of this great turn in our lives. And may His Love drive out the fear of becoming truly His and truly ourselves, in essence becoming saints.
