#selflesness

There was this blog I read about a story of a young mother. She gave birth to a little boy at the age of 19 which was clearly a result of demoniacal acts done to her. With all other better things to do in a situation where there is no possible good thing to exist, she decided to keep and raise the child. She was robbed of her teenage years—one of the crucial parts of understanding the fundamental sense of self before coming to adulthood—and was forced to keep abreast with motherhood.

Her child speaks good of her, that she was a loving and caring mother. And the kid knew that the comfort he enjoys are the fruit of working several jobs, skipping meals, and sacrifices his mother had to endure. Then when he graduated college, had a degree, and fulfilled the promise to his mother, she ended it all. Left a note that said her life however piteous and tragic, he made it radiant and painless.

This true story appeal to me as a bewildering thought—the act of selflessness that I cannot fully catch. It is as though a mother bird seeing hatchling take a flight and flap their wings then soar through an abyss where it meets the nothingness. Like having a short-lived life to submit to an unwanted duty but at the same gave the fullest without anticipating for reciprocity. And this quality of a feminine being is something that falls in the otherness of the ethics of alterity. The continual drive to care and prioritize others, not to be present for oneself, and fully surrender in the idea of becoming a being for others. And I reckon, that she may have perceived the path of self as a starting point to understand her son but rather ultimately recognized her own beingness, which associated a cost—her demise.

Proverb: The earth is a beehive, we all enter by the same door. ~ African

I am now convinced that the act which takes the most courage is that of selflessness.

It’s just comical almost to see all the ways God has been uncloaking my fears and launching me into positions where I simply must rely on the courage He gives me in order to successfully walk through the fires that keep springing up so unpredictably. Comical in the way that it’s not comical at all. Comical in the way that I laugh at everything, especially when I most shouldn’t. Comical in the way that I laugh over things that would cause a more sane person to cry or scream. Comical in the way that—as those who know me best would know—my laughter at moments such as those signifies not a noble strength or inner calm, but rather a terrible weakness and inner turmoil so paralyzing that I cannot find it within me to react as one would expect, to muster the self-control to express myself naturally, and somewhere in the midst of my panic and vulnerability, my mind somehow triggers the reflex to merely laugh, kind of like a fight-or-flight instinct, but perhaps more accurately described as a laugh-or-collapse instinct. I suppose.

I laughed quite a bit today. It makes sense in that even a normal person laughs when overwhelmed by adrenaline and any exhilarating or fear-inducing experience. Everyone laughs when they anxiously choose to thrust themselves into a terrifying situation, knowing nothing all too bad can come out of it. Roller coasters, horror films, sky diving, a first kiss. That much makes sense. And I felt the adrenaline today. The anxious raveling within, the flutter of fearful wings rising in my throat, tickling at the corner of my eyes, pleading, prompting, pestering for just one just one just one tear to break surface, to relieve the chaos below.

So I laughed. Allowed the flutter of some fearful wings to manifest themselves in the more light-hearted sentiment of could-be-seen-as joy. Nonchalance. Indifference, or maybe even disinterest if I was that successful. Certainly not composure, though. No. I don’t believe I will ever master such a skill as that.

Damn the dramatic theatrics of my hopeless heart. 

Yes. This makes sense.

The most natural, effortless action one can take is a selfish one. These are the truly instinctual acts, those of self-preservation and protection and provision. These take no courage, no boldness, no audacity whatsoever. These are predictable, reasonable, logical. The rest of the world could observe and nod their heads in unastonished boredom. Truly, selfishness is perhaps the most universally shared and entirely unimpressive of all qualities.

But an act of selflessness… Is against all. Against all logic, all instincts, all personal desires, everything society instills in us, everything media programs into us. Every vacuum, every void, seeks to be filled, but selflessness is a void that seeks most unconventionally to fill other voids. Remarkable.

There is not a cell in my body that defaults to selflessness. Nothing within me leans toward altruism, yearns to give, strives to release. Nothing. Nothing of my human nature. Inherent in my being, rather, is the desire to be filled, to be loved, to be served. It’s the simple ugly tragic authentic truth.

And my God how beautiful it is to watch myself perform an act of selflessness. Because it is in these acts that I most clearly see the Spirit at work within me. It’s like for a few moments my flesh and my mind and my heart and my desires and all of myself are suspended and paused and just placed aside momentarily, and from the distance somewhere within I get to simply watch the Spirit work and move and breathe within me, speaking words I could never have formulated of my own accord, administering gestures and smiles my own facial muscles knew not how to perform. And somehow it’s entirely unlike being directed about as a marionette. It’s entirely different, a process much more intimate and molding and personally involved. Interactive even as I have no role in the activity whatsoever. Oh, the paradoxical nature of our God.

All I know is that I intended to act in such a different manner. Suspected that my words would be fueled by anger, my admissions incited by ulterior motives, my demeanor comprised of bitterness, hurt, resentment. Oh me of little faith, so little faith in the power of God to fashion me into a woman of character and restraint when I know my nature apart from Him deems integrity as inefficient and caution as futile. With Him I am not who I am, for He makes beautiful things out of the dust.

Oh praise Him. Praise Him for his faithfulness, his imagination, his shocking creativity.

I had seriously questioned my motives in even harboring feelings. Had half convinced myself it was entirely pride and selfishness. That I had one goal in mind and would never give up hope or efforts in achieving it. And how awful that was, to be that way, to interact that way, to know that no matter what I said or what I prayed, in the end my motives were unyieldingly for my own gain.

I’ve proven to myself the inaccuracy of this; rather God has revealed to me my potential to overcome this selfish human shell when I allow his Spirit to be the life within me.

In fact, I believe today I did the most selfless thing I have ever done. Not merely for the gain and advantage of helping another, but in direct consequence, for the loss and disadvantage of helping myself.

And, now I know for certain what I knew not before.