Another One Bites the Dust

Perhaps mainly because I have rather a morbid sense of humor, I found it amusing when I heard that performing CPR on someone ideally should be done at about 100 beats per minute and that in order to count those beats it helps to use a song that keeps that tempo, such as "Another One Bites the Dust."

Who would ever think of using such a song to save a dying person?

I mean do you want those in danger of death to think they might be about to bite the dust?

And yet it can achieve precisely the opposite result: instead of biting the dust and dying, the person can live to face another day.

In the spiritual life, it is much the same.

Die to self.

We are told again and again that we are to die to ourselves.  Yet we hear it as if we were that person lying on the ground receiving CPR and hearing a song about biting the dust.  It makes us think that we are going to die.

Is that true?  Or is that a lie sown by the enemy?

Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.

Those are the words of Christ.  And why would our loving Savior demand anything of us unless it was for our good?

I recently had another project of mine bite the dust.  It followed on a succession of other various happenings that I could describe as things biting the dust—my hopes and expectations mainly.  When this most recent project bit the dust, its death at first seemed to mean the death of much more.

However, I was not left in that place of despair.  Instead, I began to be led along a path that meant a new way of thinking that follows in the same vein as Christ's call to deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Him.

This perspective also places the words of the aforementioned song in an entirely new light.

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust.
Another one bites the dust.

Each time these words ring in the happenings around us, we too can receive spiritual CPR.  Each time something we hold too dear bites the dust, the Holy Spirit can compress grace into our spiritual lungs, restoring us to new life.

Moderation

I once played a character whose key phrase was "Moderation, moderation!" much to the annoyance of the other characters, and even myself on occasion—although not when I was fully in character.

That character comes to mind today because moderation has much to do with virtue and thus much to do with Lent.  After the fast of Ash Wednesday with which we begin this great season, I cannot help but reflect how much easier it often is to deny oneself entirely than to partake in moderation.

Lent comes around and my spirit rises up at the challenge of denying myself.  It is almost too easy.  (My Lord is too good to me, but He knows my weakness.)

The rest of the year, however, when self-denial is not required in so dramatic a form, the temptations of excess seem so much harder to resist.  Fasting or abstinence for a particular season, a particular intention, seem natural.  Paradoxically, moderation, which requires less self-denial, seems unnaturally impossible and requires ever so much more exertion of will.  Why should giving up less be so much more difficult?

Perhaps I am alone in this experience—although I doubt it.  Somehow once we have tasted of some pleasure, we can find much less reason to deny ourselves its enjoyment....