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TITLE: Death of the Cherished Self By kathryn johnson 07/01/07 |
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Jesus said, “In order to find your life you must lose it.” How embarrassing to admit my own lust for glory and honor.
C.S. Lewis says my own glory is none of my business, but my neighbor’s glory and honor are every bit of my business. The only way for me to live, to really live, is to turn my back on my self-interested pursuits and yield myself to my Maker and my fellows. Every time I do this there is a little death to my ‘self.’ Can I be so bold as to call these little deaths challenges...indeed, even adventures?
When I yield my will to the will of my Maker or my fellows I am assayed of my willingness to lay down my own ways and to take up instead the ways of another. To lay down my life for another is quite the adventure. To lay down my way of doing things is a constant barrage of adventure, a sort of continuous death.
Do I have the courage to die a little every day...even every moment? G.K. Chesterton defined courage as a strong desire to live taking the form of a willingness to die.
But I want to be proved a true knight. It is not the ‘passing worshipful knight’ who is slain or made to yield. It is the ‘false knight beloved of evil’ who is supposed to die. Not I, but he should die.
And yet I am not commanded to kill your greedy, self-interested, hell-bent self. I am commanded to kill my own.
In this way, there is a criminal needing executed. However, it is my own criminal and not his or hers. Each is required to slay their own creep within. Oh what grief awaits this sort of death. Of all the civilizations who succeed in civilizing grief: all that sophistication goes up in a puff when it is my turn to die. None can tame the weeping, wailing and tearing of robes which follow the death of the cherished self.
In the world of Arthurian Romance, the terms die and yield were nearly synonymous and they were used interchangeably. Every bout of our yielding to that which is outside of the ‘me,’ means another death to our dearly beloved self. And when I say dearly beloved, I mean dearly preferred.
They pursued it as a lust.
To the knight, adventure was a call to arms and a rushing headlong into affliction—on purpose!
They sought out affliction as you or I today seek out material possessions. And the heart of this lust was a fully kindled desire to be proved of both fitness and virtue.
The true knight doubted if he was worshipful at all. His behavior had all the air of a sickening self-suspicion. It was almost as though he could not be finished with proving himself—even to himself. For at every turn these knights were in search of that adventure which might test them and therefore perfect them.
“Fair damsel,” said the knight, “know ye in this country any adventures?”
“Sir knight,” said the damsel, “here are adventures near at hand, and thou prove them.”
“Why should I not prove adventures?” Said the knight. “For that cause came I hither.”
This appears a very strange and foreign lust to my sleepy eyes. Groggily I read on. And slowly I begin waking to this odd image of chivalry; and I begin to desire it.
If you or I wish to begin with our first adventure, we might well look at what we have been hitherto avoiding. How about that letter I am neglecting to write because there is so much other I’d rather be doing with my life. Or, what about that person I’ve not called because I am ‘waiting for him to come to his senses?’
Dress yourselves, for Sir Pride has asked to have ado with you. Make capture of him and in his stead Sir Dignity will be at your side. Honor is Sir Beaumains in the flesh! He dresses as a mere kitchen servant to put our friendship to the test.
“How is it,” we whisper, “that a mere kitchen page so worshipfully slays even giants?”
A kitchen knave we read that Beaumains was; yet, he behaved as one born of high and noble blood. Humility is painfully modest.
And to be frank, the further you feel from glory the nearer you may just well be. There is no difference whatever between humility and glory. It won’t feel like your proudest moment. But it will mark a moment of paternal pride in your Maker when you yield that cherished self to someone other than the self.
So I say with a smile, “know ye any adventures in this country? Let the tourney begin to–day!”
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