Far from Eden

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Meditation on Tuesday, the 3rd week of Advent, year B1

“Today I am setting before you life and happiness, death and misfortune. …

So choose life. ” (Pp 30, 15-20)

“Today, the choice of life or death is made by a man wounded by death,

a man who has a disturbed life experience and sometimes difficult

him to understand what it really is, and therefore not to understand

what God calls him to. (1)

God, in creating man, gave him freedom. God does not enslave, he does not force you to do good. The prince of darkness, on the contrary. Either way is good to lose a man and make God out of spite. Hatred of man – that is what drives our greatest enemy.

This free will is the simplest and, at the same time, the most complete answer to the question of why God allows us to err, why is there so much evil around.

But why do I choose the evil that I do not want, instead of the good that I want, repeating for St. Paweł, this is the fundamental question. I can’t explain it except by some kind of spiritual schizophrenia, a split personality. I have two worlds within me, two opposing desires – good that is objective and fits my value system, and evil that may be bad, but appears to be pleasant. As long as evil is attractive to me, it will be difficult to choose. And even if evil loses its attractiveness in my eyes, it’s still difficult to cut myself off so clearly.

As Hemingway wrote, no one is a lonely island. We live among other people, man is a social being. Even when I cut myself off from evil and I don’t want to have anything to do with it, evil surrounds me on all sides every day, small lies, malice, rudeness. A boring picture emerges from this description, but there is also good news: man is not evil by nature. A good example can be contagious. Responding with kindness to unkindness can change the attitude of the other party.

It seems to me that a Christian choosing good consciously – keeps away from mortal sin (one that breaks the relationship with God), and if such a sin happens to him, he tries to repair the broken relationship with the Father as soon as possible. On the other hand, venial sin (small matter, under duress, in emotions) is like the air that surrounds me. Sometimes I don’t even know when I’m going into evil. Unfortunately, evil has established itself in our world, in culture, customs, and patterns of behavior. I do not know if it is possible to survive at least one day without falling into evil, without participating in evil.

Even when I bike to work, I get irritated because on the way I will have to break a few rules or the road will take a lot more time. There are episodes that I prefer to break the rules and not push my way onto a busy street, where I am a hindrance to drivers and they are a threat to me. You can of course drive a bike along the pavement, but this is beyond common sense. For me, it is almost heroism to go the way to comply with Polish regulations.

Suppose I make an informed decision, believe in God, and believe in God. I believe that God wants my good, that he loves me madly, that he will do anything not to lose me … Everything except violating my free will, which He has given me. I believe and trust that all these commandments are for my good. What’s next? How am I supposed to find myself and at home in this strange world?

If I do it “my way”, if I stop at the decision and change nothing in my life, I will not take the trouble to enter God’s world, I will not stop feeding my heart with garbage, waste of this world – nothing will change and after some time I will be able to say: it all makes no sense; where is this God?

If I do it “not in my own way”, i.e. I say that I do not know how, but I will give this way to the Holy Spirit, and in my daily prayer I will not only say but also listen to what the Lord has to say to me, maybe not He will speak to me directly, but He will speak to my heart, transforming it. And if every day I feed my heart with the Word of Life – the Holy Scriptures, after some time I will be able to say: it works, I see the meaning where it was not, I see flashes of light where there used to be darkness, I have more peace, more joy less fear. (2)

1. The tragedy between life and death http://www.przymrawyoblubienca.bialystok.pl/index.php/chc-przeczyta-/ycieczy-mier-co-wybierasz-

2. A good help will be the “Renewal of Faith Seminar”. If someone has the opportunity to participate, I highly recommend it, I am just finishing my participation in the seminar. http://razemzajezusem.pl/seminarium-odnowy-wiary-2013 or individually using the http://razemzajezusem.pl/ksiazki manual / 457-podrecznik-participant-sow -book-participant-sow but it’s easier in a group.

3. A school of spiritual warfare – about tactics, traps and the actions of an evil spirit, as well as recipes for how not to get screwed by the evil one. Recollection video: http://izydor.tv/swd-12-2014

4. “Exile from Paradise” – the graphic comes from the website: http://variart.org/galeria/2044-dominikad/22846-wygnanie_z_raju_.htm – Work: dominikad

5. Eden – biblical paradise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden_%28raj%29