Earthly Idols And Christian Contemplation

It is in allowing Christ to live in us fully that we find true joy on earth.

Only emotionally immature and inarticulate people define themselves by what they are not. (Sometimes this is accompanied by wild and outlandish language, gestures, and decisions in life.) So it is not healthy to think that we find the greatest joy in escaping from the self we fabricate in order to make ourselves acceptable to others (our false self). Again, it cannot be emphasized enough that self-promotion, self-punishment, nor excessive life choices ever get anyone anywhere.

It is only by entering purely by love into union with God that we find our selves. This is what it means to positively come to understand ourselves.

That life (true identity) dwells in some manner in all earthly things. In God's love we possess all things in their essence. Short of this no created thing is able to bring us joy, but only pain and contradiction and holds us away from God - our manipulation of life brings us strife and sorrow. But through the passive investment of our self in Christ, and he living in all things on earth, we become both blessed and a blessing.

The joy that we find in created beings belongs to the synonymous reality of having been created ourselves; the disorder we find in created beings belongs to the dishevelment of our own desires which looks at created things in a way that demands of them something for which they were never created to be and are therefore incapable of fulfilling. Disorder always emerges from selfishness and ultimately reflects our usurping God. Instead of finding joy in creation we wind up worshipping ourselves by hijacking creation. This is idolatry.