superficiality

"Work is needed to express and receive what is true: also to receive what is true. We can express and receive what is false, or at least what is superficial, without any work."

"...In the same way as pretexts are necessary for unjust wars, a promise of some false good is necessary for sin, because we cannot endure the thought that we are going in the direction of evil. It is not the flesh which keeps us away from God; the flesh is the veil we place before us to shield us from him."

Upon the moment of salvation, we are left with two routes; we can either expose our flesh to the light, which wounds us and is difficult to endure but ultimately heals. Or we can protect ourselves by using our flesh as a shield to continue on in comfort, but die both spiritually and physically. This is the tragedy of superficial Christianity- we don't like getting hurt and somehow along the way we thought this was about us. May I put myself in a place where God can take me by force. What am I trying to preserve here other than my own flesh? Superficiality is a sickness and we have reached pandemic apathy in lieu of it. More guilty are those who have seen the light and choose to remain hidden from it.

"A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams."