On "Dying to self" and "Taking up your cross"

But the cross is the means of our liberation and reconnection.  It is not about the subjugation of the self, but about a new self. And so to avoid the potentially negative meaning of "dying to self," I prefer to speak more precisely of an old and new identity and way of being.  The way of the cross involves dying to an old identity and being born into a new identity, dying to an old way of being and being raised to a new way of being, one centered in God."

To be born again involves dying to the false self, to that identity, to that way of being, and to be born into an identity centered int he Spirit, in Christ, in God.  It is the process of internal redefinition of the self whereby a real person is born within us."

To relate this to John's affirmation that Jesus is "the way": the way that Jesus incarnated is a universal way, not an exclusive way. Jesus is the embodiment, the incarnation, of the path of transformation known in the religions that have stood the test of time.

-Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, pgs. 112-113,117, 119.

At the center of our being is an innermost point of truth which shares not only the likeness, but perhaps even the substance of God's own being.  And yet, following the bent of Christian tradition, he makes it absolutely clear that access to this center is not at our command; it is entered only through the gateway of our complete poverty and nothingness.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Payer and Inner Awakening, pg. 14

Our vision of others is distorted, because we see them only through the refracted image of ourselves. We play at love, but perform it immaturely, childishly. Paul doesn’t really explain how being able to “know, even as we are known” is related to enduring charity. But in that moment of really seeing Dwayne, I started to understand that once we see each other, we love readily, even inevitably. And real love–Christ’s–comes, undeserved and even unbidden, as a gift of clear sight. Because charity is a gift of God, and not an act of will, it bears all things–even human contradiction; it can come to us even in anger, disgust, or fear, as the infant Christ came to a dark, forgotten corner to dwell among the beasts and his beastly and beloved human kin.

Kristine Haglund, www.bycommonconsent.com, "To See Face to Face"

Like most of the great spiritual masters of our universe, Jesus taught from the conviction that we human beings are victims of a tragic case of mistaken identity.  The person I normally take myself to be--that busy, anxious little "I" so preoccupied with its goals,fear, desire, and issues--is never even remotely the whole of who I am, and to seek the fulfillment of my life at this level means to miss out on the bigger life.  This is why, according to his teaching, the one who tries to keep his "life" (i.e., the small one) will lose it, and the one who is willing to lose it will find the real thing.  Beneath the surface there is a deeper and vastly more authentic Self, but its presence is usually veiled by the clamor of the smaller "I" with its insatiable needs and demands.

Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, pg. 10

What is always at stake in any decision we make is what that choice turns us into.  We may suffer the unfortunate consequences of other peoples' choices.  People may honor or abuse us, harm or nourish us. But for the most part, it is our own choices that shape our identity.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 81

Paul wrote a beautiful hymn to charity, which the King James translators rendered in part, "For now we see through a glass darkly."  By "glass" they meant a looking glass, a mirror.  The original actually reads, "We see in a mirror dimly" (NRSV).  In other words, we are the mystery yet to be revealed.  It is our own identity that we must struggle to discern, before we can rightly perceive our place in the cosmos and our relation to the Divine.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 38