Sunday, January 16, 2011

It's All Hype

Sometimes, I have these days when I am all put together. My hair is so amazing that I should be in a Pert commercial. There are no zits to be found on my fair and creamy complexion and for once, my pants fit just right.

Life is good and I am awesome.

Then I trip. Or drive to work with part of my coat hanging out the car door. Or I spill something on my shirt or I realize I've been smiling at the world, thinking I was stunning, with a big chunk of green parsley between my teeth. Something. Anything to remind me that I'm not nearly as awesome as my ego and imagination might like me to be.

I have this nasty little habit of believing that the gifts I bring into the world are so amazing, so wonderful, so cool that I am the center of the universe. I occasionally think that my opinions are so needed that anyone who dares to disagree with me is wrong. They are idiotic or at least just plain foolish to ignore the wisdom I am spouting forth.

Except it's all hype.

In reality, I have my fair share of moments in which I am an arrogant, egotistical, know-it-all. And, although I struggle mightily against it there are quite a few scenarios in which I fail. Monumentally.

I could do my best to justify myself. I could claim heredity. After all, any daughter of a fire and brimstone preaching, Southern Baptist minister comes by this character flaw honestly. But doing that would be disingenuous. What I really am is a human being that is broken and flawed and in need of grace.

And the only way to find grace is to come to terms with is that I am never as awesome as my best moment and will never be as lousy as my worst. I fall somewhere in the great sea of mediocrity with the rest of humanity. And as with all the humanity the balance and struggle is to know we are all equally loved by God, and to recognize that all of us are gifted with holy dignity.

It just isn't necessary to step on someone else's neck or soul to make myself feel better.

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