Doctors used to attach leeches to people to bleed them of the “bad blood” making them sick. Yuck!
Attachments like leeches are addictions which we use to prop up our sagging egos, which, in fact, do the opposite:
Fancy new cars, big houses, prestigious church positions, degrees, reputation for personal holiness, and so on. All the things I’ve got to have to live the good life.
My personal favorite is ideas, books. If I can just grasp something intellectually, then I will have mastered it. The psychological term for this particular defense mechanism is “intellectualization.”
But in my own life at present I’m coping with stuff you can’t master—illness.
The more you struggle, the tighter grip it gains on you.
Besides which, if you busy yourself understanding something, you don’t have to actually change anything. Understanding why I sin isn’t necessary in order to stop sinning (though it may help).
The ancient prophet confronted the attachments, the false fires, at which people then warmed themselves.
Who among you fears the LORD
and obeys the voice of his servant,
who walks in darkness
and has no light,
yet trusts in the name of the LORD
and relies upon his God?
But all of you are kindlers of fire,
lighters of firebrands.
Walk in the flame of your fire,
and among the brands that you have kindled!
This is what you shall have from my hand:
you shall lie down in torment.
Isaiah 50:10-11 (NRSV)
We light our own little fires or like Peter we warm our hands at the fire outside the ruler’s palace, while the true light, the light that enlightens everyone, is tried by the principalities and powers inside.
At the end of the day we lie down in torment. Worry. Emptiness. Brokenness.
So, that’s the alternative we have: trust or torment.
We can worship at the drive in divinity dives on the high places, where thrive sex, feel good rituals, and civil religion.
Or we can take our stand with the servants of the Living One (who don’t fare so well in this world), and trust God at the survival level.
“Seek ye first the rule of God (in your heart and daily life and in the world), and all these things will be added unto you,”
Jesus said.
I’ve begun reading the Latin American Journal published online by servicios Koinonia, en español (!). I’m brushing up on my college Spanish (how many years ago was that? sometime in the last century, literally). Why? Because it, like my African family in Yaoundé, Cameroon, keeps me aware how 90% of the people of the world have to live, outside the North American bubble.
They help me to recognize the leeches that I’ve been sold as essential to my way of life.
Or, is it (as the prophet long ago warned) a way of death and darkness?
Photo by Mary Fran