It is selfish to love oneself. It is selfless to love God.
It could be said they are the same thing. It's a different focus, however. To concentrate on God and on His will, I might recognise the direction I should take. To concentrate on my own wants and needs, I might become self-centred, greedy, inward-looking; and battling against such thoughts would distract from the real goal of living the best life I can.
It's hard to put words on all of this.
There is no doubt that in order to be guided on God's path, there is a need for some sort of structure. For a map. For guidance. Spiritual guidance. And for that, I don't know where to turn. I have the Koran and the Bible to hand. And John O'Donohue's Benedictus which I like very much. The americanised Power Prayers were hard to take. And I recently got rid of Sister Stan's Stillness Through My Prayers and John Waters' Lapsed Agnostic (which I never finished). I appear to have little patience / perseverance / tolerance / stamina. There is also a book on Tibetan Sound Healing and The Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali: How to Know God. Back to the Christian end of things: a copy of A New Catechism, A Tiny Book of Bible Promises and A Contemporary Reading of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Perhaps it's too much. Whatever the explanation, I am finding it very hard to do this work alone. And, in fact, Saint Ignatius doesn't recommend it.
This is Easter week. Perhaps a visit to Belfield church will do me good. My brother was baptised there on Easter week. And my grand-uncle used to bring us to UCD - they are good memories associated with the university although there are numerous not-so-good memories. I like the church.
The choir I sing with recently performed Bach's B Minor Mass. Perhaps singing excerpts from that and other Godly music is a change I could make.
Maybe I need to simply set aside 20 minutes each morning to meditate on the word "God". Again - a little guidance would be helpful if I knew where to turn to.
There is no conclusion in this post. Just confusion. And a realisation of how little progress I have made. And a renewed realisation of the importance of learning to know God. Learning about Him. Loving Him
