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hat's the most pressing part of myself that demands change? Or at least, what actions can I start to take (or start not taking) that would be most gainful to the state of my soul? It must be love of my neighbor. I think we could all stand to love God a great deal more than we do, but I think most people don't even necessarily have a great vision of what it means to love God more. God is a Big Deal, the Biggest Deal, and it can be hard to place ourselves in the appropriate relation to Him. Keep His commandments -- for sure. Try to think about Him and be grateful for all that He does in my life -- can do. I know there's a lot more than that, and even within those two I have a lot of work; but it's hard to pull up a visceral sense of what loving God more will look like for me-here-now.
But loving my neighbor? That's not abstract, it's terrifyingly concrete. We always have abstractions to fall back on, don't we, to protect us from the Divine Commands? Who's my neighbor? Surely, everyone in the whole world! So, instead of knocking on my literal neighbor's door, and getting to know them and their problems, surely I can just send a check to a charity, and I've done the Lord's work. I'll make it a big check, I'll make sure it hurts, I'll be sure to send it even when I'm "not very financially stable". Just please, please don't make me talk to someone face to face. Don't make me talk about Christ and prayer and the afterlife with flesh and blood humans. Don't make me give the things I really care about: my time and myself; amen.