The Lie

This false self is the person that people want themselves to be. It is the person whom they will themselves to be. It exists outside of the person of God who created them...outside of reality and life and love.

All sorts of human conditions - both personal and social - contribute to people not being very good at recognizing these illusions that they cherish about themselves and which feed the roots of alienation, which is the definition of sin. Indeed, all sin is founded upon people's egocentric desires which they use to order the world around them.

Our true identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. So it is only when we wait in the peace and emptiness and oblivion of all things that we become ourselves. It is only when we are poised in effortless dependence on God that we, in silent expectancy, can be sure that we are doing God's will.

The greater the effort to make myself more real, more relevant, more pertinent, more powerful, more useful, more a witness, then, to be sure, the less real and the less myself I am, because all of these revolve around a lie.

Bonum est prestolari cum silentio salutare Dei. / It is good to wait in silence for the salvation of God.