7 - 8 - 17 Respect Yourself! (Past, Present, and Future)

The first reading today speaks of Rebekah and Jacob’s deception of Isaac whereby Jacob receives Esau’s blessing, Genesis 27. Link

For some reason this story reminded me of Jesus’s imperative to “let your yes mean yes and your no mean no.” I think it is because of how heavily the idea of a covenant plays in so many interactions in Genesis, with Abraham making his servant agree to never take Isaac from Canaan for a wife, God promising to Abraham that Ishmael will be safe and prosperous, and Isaac giving Jacob (or Esau) his blessing.

There is this reverence for a promise that I think is substantially different in our culture today. But I don’t believe it’s unique to ancient Mesopotamia. I remember watching Last Kingdom and seeing the main character Uhtred continue to serve a man he hated for a country that was not his own, because he gave him his word. Perhaps it is a cultural shift in response to lifestyle and technological changes. When people can move so easily and frequently, connect with others freely, and generally live considerably more comfortable lives than their ancestors they may care less what their neighbors think.

I think promises are a good thing to subject ourselves to. This wording is a little odd but I think it’s fitting. Somebody asked me one time how I was able to push myself to accomplish so much, which I took as a compliment first of all but I did answer their question to the best of my knowledge. I said that I committed myself to things when I was feeling ambitious, optimistic, or idealistic, and then future me had to either follow through or look like a fool. I still am quite demanding of my future self, and I think we should all push our future selves a little harder. It is quite a bit easier than pushing our current selves for our physical weaknesses and distractions exist in the present and will fight us, while the future’s sloth is defenseless.

I don’t know if I’ll say promises are an inherently good thing, I’m not sure if that statement really makes any sense actually. But I think they can be incredibly powerful tools for holding ourselves to high standards. Usually when we make promises we are at our very best state of mind. We make a promise to our lover to be with them forever when we are feeling most in love, we make a promise to ourselves to get in shape when we are feeling most motivated and bothered by our current state. What I mean to say is that the promise-making mind is in an elevated state, it is an ambitious and courageous mind. And if we could follow its lead we will find ourselves living elevated and courageous lives.

An important note to this is that we must learn to respect ourselves. By this I don’t mean eating healthy or not beating ourselves up too much over our mistakes, though I do agree with both of those prescriptions. We need to honor our past selves, the believing, perhaps naïve person who had great plans for us today. I realize it is quite strange to think of ourselves as three people, the past, the present (what people would usually consider themselves), and the future, but God does it so there’s at least a precedent for a trinity of identity as a concept. I digress. We need to respect the wishes of our past self, especially when we see that we were in a clearer state of mind at the time our past self made a commitment than we are at the present time trying to rationalize a shirking of that commitment. This is another area where people fall into trouble. The Western myth of continuous progress has leeched into our conception of our own development to the point where people believe they must be wiser today than they were yesterday.

But, if we view our life as a journey, then a step down the wrong path is really the same as walking backwards down the right path, so the person who turns around earliest will make the most progress that day. I stole that from Lewis. We’ve got to take time to evaluate whether we really know better than our past self when we feel a disagreement out of more than just laziness. I realize the concept of an objective evaluation between ourselves and ourselves sounds a bit ludicrous but it’s the only way I can think of phrasing the mode of reflection I have in mind.

What do I know? Why do I think I know things? That’s a phenomenal question I don’t have the answer to. But I’ve got these ideas rattling in my head, and my only choices are to bottle them in a word document or let the vapor go away, and I hate the thought of lost thoughts.

Besides, I think I’ve done pretty well. I’m very happy at least. I don’t profess myself to be all that wise but I think I may have some strategies, some insights that are worthy of merit. Is this pride? Me seeing myself as wise? Probably, I’ll have to work on that.