"You are restricted in your own affections" - 2 Corinthians 6:12
When you ask a person on the street what is limiting them, what restricts them? What is freedom? What is slavery? ...the answer you will receive is about how people or responsibilities or circumstances have limited and restricted them -a lost job, a controlling spouse, overbearing laws, a bullying boss, uncontrollable children, etc. And true freedom is the genuine lack of external limitations like these. And thus slavery is those very limitations being imposed on us.
But there is a more hidden type of slavery. It is more widespread, more deeply entrenched, and has deadlier effects. Buddha once taught that the root of suffering is desire. Our cravings actually destroy us. They enslave us. The bible says something similar here, but with a little different nuance and different implications. It says, you are restricted in your own affections. We could also say, you are limited by what you love.
So when I was 9 years old a baseball coach approached me. I had not met him before. He said, "I just drafted you to be on our Majors Division Dodgers team next year. You were one of my first picks. I've seen you play even when you were in T-ball." I felt something in that moment. A sense of worth and value that felt so good. I was a part of something special. The Dodgers were 4-time returning champions. Years later I found my heart longing to receive that same feeling in very curious ways. But instead of sports (it turned out I wasn't very good at sports anyway) I sought the accolades of others through more mature contexts, as it were. Being financially savvy, intellectual prowess, adventurous travels, etc. There was intrinsic value to all of these of course in my mind, but if I was honest, at its pinnacle I wanted to feel that feeling again. To be weighed and to be valued, appreciated, even admired. To feel that old feeling again through another "ata-boy." It pulled me in. In reality, it tainted every corner of my life. I was what Ayn Rand calls a second-hander. The appraisal of others being the subtle guiding hand that pulled my strings. Now don't misunderstand. I didn't need a self-esteem book. Just like all of you, I swam everyday in an ocean of our self-esteem-first culture. But of course it was empty platitudes, and I knew it. The believe-in-yourself doctrines were much too shallow to pull me out of this diseased spiral. I developed efficient patterns of bending the truth to serve this feeling. I closed in on myself socially, so as to limit potential feelings of humiliation. Humiliation, after all, is the opposite of being honored and admired. It was like I was backing into a dark cave for protection, but in the end the cave became my prison. A prison of my own making. I was restricted by my own affections. A curious slavery no doubt.
Aristotle might say the problem is moderation. Buddha might say the problem is desire itself. The bible has a different diagnosis. There is one affection, one desire that is the antidote for this diseased spiral. Read that carefully again.... A desire that cures a desire. There is one passion that can heal us from our enslaving passions. There is one affection that is the remedy for enslaving affections. And contrary to Aristotle and Buddha the more we feed this desire and the more this affection burns hotter and hotter in our lives, the more freedom we feel. Jesus said it like this, the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. This is it. And notice the superlatives. There is no moderation with this desire. With every fiber of your being, make this affection unequivocally supreme. There is also no theoretical cessation of desire. This must be an undissolvable passion and affection that becomes the final remedy for our 'restricting' affections. We are indeed meant to feel something profound, not just on occasion and not just with moderation. But of course it is not any old feeling or desire. What you love means everything and especially what you love supremely. It is the difference between internal disease and inner flourishing, internal corrosion and inner thriving.
All those years ago, something was restricting me. It wasn't others. It wasn't circumstances. It was my own affections that restricted me. And the real problem with my affections and desires wasn't a lack of moderation or the fact of deep desire itself. It was what I loved, and what I desired. I was trapped in my cave. And when the cold and darkness settled in, I had to choose to risk the danger outside or be locked in my own decaying prison... Locked in by own affections.
When you ask a person on the street what is limiting them, what restricts them? What is freedom? What is slavery? ...the answer you will receive is about how people or responsibilities or circumstances have limited and restricted them -a lost job, a controlling spouse, overbearing laws, a bullying boss, uncontrollable children, etc. And true freedom is the genuine lack of external limitations like these. And thus slavery is those very limitations being imposed on us.
But there is a more hidden type of slavery. It is more widespread, more deeply entrenched, and has deadlier effects. Buddha once taught that the root of suffering is desire. Our cravings actually destroy us. They enslave us. The bible says something similar here, but with a little different nuance and different implications. It says, you are restricted in your own affections. We could also say, you are limited by what you love.
So when I was 9 years old a baseball coach approached me. I had not met him before. He said, "I just drafted you to be on our Majors Division Dodgers team next year. You were one of my first picks. I've seen you play even when you were in T-ball." I felt something in that moment. A sense of worth and value that felt so good. I was a part of something special. The Dodgers were 4-time returning champions. Years later I found my heart longing to receive that same feeling in very curious ways. But instead of sports (it turned out I wasn't very good at sports anyway) I sought the accolades of others through more mature contexts, as it were. Being financially savvy, intellectual prowess, adventurous travels, etc. There was intrinsic value to all of these of course in my mind, but if I was honest, at its pinnacle I wanted to feel that feeling again. To be weighed and to be valued, appreciated, even admired. To feel that old feeling again through another "ata-boy." It pulled me in. In reality, it tainted every corner of my life. I was what Ayn Rand calls a second-hander. The appraisal of others being the subtle guiding hand that pulled my strings. Now don't misunderstand. I didn't need a self-esteem book. Just like all of you, I swam everyday in an ocean of our self-esteem-first culture. But of course it was empty platitudes, and I knew it. The believe-in-yourself doctrines were much too shallow to pull me out of this diseased spiral. I developed efficient patterns of bending the truth to serve this feeling. I closed in on myself socially, so as to limit potential feelings of humiliation. Humiliation, after all, is the opposite of being honored and admired. It was like I was backing into a dark cave for protection, but in the end the cave became my prison. A prison of my own making. I was restricted by my own affections. A curious slavery no doubt.
Aristotle might say the problem is moderation. Buddha might say the problem is desire itself. The bible has a different diagnosis. There is one affection, one desire that is the antidote for this diseased spiral. Read that carefully again.... A desire that cures a desire. There is one passion that can heal us from our enslaving passions. There is one affection that is the remedy for enslaving affections. And contrary to Aristotle and Buddha the more we feed this desire and the more this affection burns hotter and hotter in our lives, the more freedom we feel. Jesus said it like this, the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. This is it. And notice the superlatives. There is no moderation with this desire. With every fiber of your being, make this affection unequivocally supreme. There is also no theoretical cessation of desire. This must be an undissolvable passion and affection that becomes the final remedy for our 'restricting' affections. We are indeed meant to feel something profound, not just on occasion and not just with moderation. But of course it is not any old feeling or desire. What you love means everything and especially what you love supremely. It is the difference between internal disease and inner flourishing, internal corrosion and inner thriving.
All those years ago, something was restricting me. It wasn't others. It wasn't circumstances. It was my own affections that restricted me. And the real problem with my affections and desires wasn't a lack of moderation or the fact of deep desire itself. It was what I loved, and what I desired. I was trapped in my cave. And when the cold and darkness settled in, I had to choose to risk the danger outside or be locked in my own decaying prison... Locked in by own affections.