deny

Friday September 18^th, Mark 8: ³⁴Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  I don’t mind the cross, as long as I can hire someone else to carry it for me.  It is the whole the “deny” himself or herself that has a bite to it.  It is against human nature.  And maybe that is the point.  Perhaps it is time to recognize that human nature has a bit of original sin in it.  Original sin being the desire to be a little god in a little pond, or that which separates us from God.  When we focus on the self, what we ironically lose is the self.  When we focus on God, we find ourselves more fully, and the “ourselves” we find is the one created in the image of God and called good.