Failures Of Personal Holiness

One of the more egregious things I often find myself guilty of is my own inability to practice personal holiness.  Too often I settle for a sort of perceived holiness, loving the concept of it and even some of the exterior portions of it, but failing to actually internalize and practice it.

I can make excuses, of course: the ability to be unholy is more easily accessed than ever, God is a forgiving God, even that in the scope of things what my issues do not constitute the major breaches of the great sinners of history (that last point, of course, is irrelevant:  all sin is a major breach with God, I just choose to justify it).

Like many things, the compromises we make are inevitably small and perhaps unnoticed by a world that has no intent of concerning itself with such things:  swearing, a little suggestive (or outright blatant) innuendo, that one "extra" glass of alcohol or piece of cake or anything else that represents going over what we know to be our personal boundary, the unkind/uncharitable thought.  No big deal.  Perhaps I ask for forgiveness after I hear the word or see the thing or slur my words a bit or feel stuffed to the point of sickness or realize that my unkind/uncharitable thought actually impacted my behavior.

The problem is not that I recognize any of this, nor even that I ask for forgiveness for it.  The problem is that I then make peace with it, and the envelope is pushed a little farther the next time.  And the next time.

For the record, this meditation was not inspired by some kind of big sin or failure, in case you are wondering. Let us get that out of the way.  It was inspired, like most things, by a small thing:  a series I was watching that had the sorts of small compromises in it that I pretended should be okay, until the larger compromise came and I realize that all along, I had been quietly making peace with - and even recommending - something which I should have neither made peace with nor recommended.

It is not a big thing - in fact, in the modern world it would likely not register on anyone's radar as anything unremarkable.  But all of a sudden, it registered on mine.

How did I come to make peace with the unholy?  How did I come to quietly become comfortable with that with which I should be uncomfortable?

Understand that this has nothing to do with the world out there.  This has nothing to do (inherently) with changing the world for good or ways to combat evil in the world.  It has everything to do with my being an effective tool of God, and the ways that I prevent that by loving evil more than loving good in my own heart.

I think perhaps the most alarming thing when a shock like this confronts me is how far the rot seems to have spread internally.  How far I have deviated from mean.  How much I have, as John the Apostle wrote, come to love "the lust of eyes, the lust of flesh, and the pride of life".

Change, of course, is both simple and hard - simple in that it is a known process (that of repentance), hard in that it involves uprooting a great many things that I have allowed to take root in my life.  It means removing several things from my life (not necessarily those I listed above) both root and branch - not just the visible (mental or physical) manifestations of them in my life, but the invisible ones and the things that I have allowed in to support them.  In some cases, it literally represents completely absenting myself from certain activities or entertainments or enjoyments which might for others be legitimate and unproblematic, but for me represent points of failure.

I could make the point, I suppose, that really I am just reflecting the state of the Church today. I suppose I could make that point, but really it is pointless to do so and perhaps even counterproductive.  To blame my own failings on something or someone else is to cede not only my responsibility for them but my power to abandon them.  

But to be fair, it has nothing to do with Church - and everything to do with me.  The Gospel states that we as individuals - not we as a corporate entity - are to be judged and are responsible for our own decisions.  These failings remain my own, the fruit of my own choices and compromises.

And therefore, the solution and the cure - and the now evident price for the undoing of this all - remains solely and completely with me.