Mark, My Words:

When Jesus tells us that we must lose our life in order to gain it, he is not playing mind games with us. On the contrary, he is giving us words that could make the difference between life and death. If we ignore his words, we could find ourselves in a kind of living death. But if we take his words into ourselves and live by them, we could start to experience life as Jesus wished us to experience it. 

There are many things we tend to cling to, but one thing that many of us cling to are our ideas. In our lives, many of us cling to destructive, or simply false, ideas that prevent us from really living healthy and full lives. Clinging to old and outworn ideas is the surest way to prevent growth in our lives, and, in fact, such clinging prevents growth in understanding of one another and of life, in general. It can also put a roadblock in our love for one another. 

Clinging to old and outworn ideas can also prevent proper and life-giving respect for our environment. It can hinder progress and keep us enslaved to inefficient and backward ways of doing things. Actually, it is hard to imagine the wide-ranging and devastating effect that such clinging can have in our lives and in our world. 

If it is true that we carry around within us so many unexamined ideas about our lives, then why don’t we just stop, examine our ideas and then change our lives accordingly? Why? Because the cost is too high. If we really looked closely at many of our ideas, we would soon see that our false ideas protect us. They protect us from being just, compassionate, kind, human, understanding and so forth. May we all have the wisdom to look closely at the many ideas which push us through life, and the courage to let die what needs dying, and to embrace what gives life.