Mindless Juices

So, I've recently been in fairly constant communication with my good friend Brian. He and I like to talk about philosophical things. Last night, we entered into one of these. Sometime during it, I inquired why we like to talk about these universals. He said it's easier to talk about them than to act on them. I like to think that by talking about them and working them out, we're more likely to work them into our daily lives. "Six of one...," I guess. I commented that we should record our conversations because 1000 years from now, people should study what our discussions. Blogging about it will probably be a s close as we get. Anyway, we were talking about the "ego" in the context of being saved. Think about when you've heard people say, "you've got to die to your self..." Well, that self, we called ego because that's really what it is. It's indentity. Brian said that humans can actually have an adrenal response when their identity is endangered. Have you ever gotten REALLY upset about someone calling you stupid or telling you you can't do something or defining you in some way you don't want to be defined? That's it... your identity, your ego. Well, the idea of dying to self is really talking about endangering your ego. Er, at least, that's how our ego sees it. But the truth is, we need our ego. We need it to make sure we meet our needs and to know where our strengths and weaknesses are. It's important. It just shouldn't be the most important. Sometimes, the ego thinks it's doing things for your benefit, but it's somewhat fallible. Sometimes, it's wrong. It makes me think of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, when the mom says, "the man may be the head of the household, but the woman is the neck." The ego wants to be the head and the neck. But, it doesn't do so well as the neck. So, the whole dying to self is actually more like subjugating the ego to the Holy Spirit. Trust me, the ego will fight because it doesn't really understand why it shouldn't be the master. If the ego is the head, the Holy Spirit needs to be the neck. :) I know, that doesn't sound right, but just like in MBFGW, what is being said is the neck is the one that's really in charge. But neither the neck nor the head is much good without the other. And neither could do the function of the other. This is the closest I'm ever going to get to being published again...