like a fire

I have been reading this book by Anthony Demello called The Way to Love. It is a part of a group I am meeting with and was a favorite of one of the couples in the group. I have to admit, my skeptical nature reared its head when they recommended it just because they praised it so much.

After reading three chapters, I would have to recant my reticence to read it. Or maybe I should just quit. It has hit just about every button I have, and chapter three is so much of my emotional junk that I wonder if the author is spying on me. That would be extraordinary since he has long since died.

Chapter three relates our sin to a computer programmed to run a certain way. I, like most computers, am sold out to my way of doing things. When things don’t obey my programming, I easily become agitated, anxious or just plain mad. He walks through that response in a unique way.

“When things are not under your control or the future is uncertain, your computer insists that you experience anxiety, tension, worry. Then you expend a lot of energy coping with these negative emotions…

And you live a pathetic existence, constantly at the mercy of things and people, trying desperately to make them conform to your computer’s demands, so that you can enjoy the only peace you can ever know.”

As we all talked last night, I realized we all do this at least a little bit. I feel like I have this mastered. So I am trying to break this cycle in the best way I know how. I’ll let you know how it goes.