Irenic Thoughts

Irenic. The word means peaceful. This web log (or blog) exists to create an ongoing, and hopefully peaceful, series of comments on the life of King of Peace Episcopal Church. This is not a closed community. You are highly encouraged to comment on any post or to send your own posts.

6/11/2007

Who Am I?

A pagan at 12, a complete agnostic at 16, G.K. Chesterton described himself writing, "I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before," to describe how to his surprise all the questions he had about the way of the world were answered in Christianity. In his book Orthodoxy, Chesterton wrote of an essential problem we all face at some point,
We have all read in scientific books, and, indeed, in all romances, the story of the man who has forgotten his name. This man walks about the streets and can see and appreciate everything; only he cannot remember who he is. Well, every man is that man in the story. Every man has forgotten who he is. One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself. We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten who we really are.
The problem is that we go to the wrong sources to discover who we are. It is in the eyes of The Beloved that you learn who you are, for it is the God who made you and who was willing to die to redeem you who knows you by name and wants you not to call upon "The Great High God," as in some unknown diety but to call upon "Abba," or "Daddy," who knows you like no other, loves you just as you are, and wants something better for you as you conform your life more to the life and teachings of Jesus.

In the archives is the sermon Abba, Father which tells of your secret identity.

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