On Sacrifice



Turning Inside Out


We have an insides.  And we have an outsides.  And, in the usual manner of things, the outsides are what is valued.  

The look.  The sound.  The actions.

Yes, we manage to say, from time to time, that someone is beautiful on the inside.  But does that comment ever have any real impact on anyone?

But we are in ordinary time and ordinary life when we care about our appearance.  Our behavior.  Our life.

When we step into being the sacrifice, the insides come out of us.

Literally.

They are given for that which we are to be sacrificed.

Our children, perhaps.

A cause we believe in.

Perhaps just our own sense of dignity.

A most inside-kind of thing.

In sacrifice, the insides of us become more valuable than the outsides.  They become worthy of notice. 

Having been hidden, tucked away, for so long.  Out of everyone else’s view.

In sacrifice, our undoings become more significant than our doings.  We surrender completely to being passive.  To having no say.  To being acted upon, instead of being the actor.

In this doing of nothing, all is accomplished.

Before the sacrifice, there is the grooming.  The caressing.  Mind and heart, body and soul are pampered.  All is gratitude and love.  We are blessed in the moments before.

But then comes the time.  The time when we get to say, Lord, not my will but thine.

Not my will.

Your will.

And we leave ourselves behind.

And go forward.

The acceptance of this movement has its own grip.  It is the grip of knowing that this movement will lead to our death.

And accepting that it is through death that we will become alive again.

All this before the plunging of the knife.

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