{"id":22731,"date":"2023-08-08T09:41:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T13:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22731"},"modified":"2023-08-08T10:02:14","modified_gmt":"2023-08-08T14:02:14","slug":"22731","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=22731","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"John Denver - Sweet Surrender (with lyrics)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XZ2VkWBf0v8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Is the False Self?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard describes the false self in the CAC\u2019s online course&nbsp;<\/em>Immortal Diamond:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The false self is all the things we pretend to be and think we are. It is the pride, arrogance, title, costume, role, and degree we take to be ourselves. It\u2019s almost entirely created by our minds, our cultures, and our families. It is what\u2019s passing and what\u2019s going to die, and\u00a0<em>it is not who we are<\/em>. For many people this is all they have\u2014but all of it is going to die when we die.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we buy into the false self and overidentify with it, we have to keep overidentifying with it, defending it, and promoting it as \u201cthe best.\u201d The false self is overidentified on a social level, a corporate level, a national level, an ethnic level. There is the Catholic false self, the Protestant false self, the American false self\u2014we can pick on whatever group we want.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many people in the United States really think that God has shed unique grace on our country\u2014but have they ever walked outside our borders? There\u2019s plenty of grace to the North and the South, in Europe and Africa. Grace is everywhere! When I was growing up as a Catholic boy in Kansas, we viewed all Protestants as heretics who were going to hell, but then I grew up and met a few nice Methodists, and I found out they thought I was going to hell too! It\u2019s just laughable.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We have to undercut the illusion right at the beginning, and when we do that, <strong>we discover the True Self \u201chidden with Christ in God\u201d (Colossians 3:3). Our True Self in God becomes our touchstone and absolutely levels the playing field. It gives us a new set of eyes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We each have different faces and different colors of skin; some of us have hair, some of us don\u2019t; some are tall, some are a little shorter. <strong>If we are living out of the false self, all we can do is measure, compare, evaluate, and label. That\u2019s what I call dualistic thinking, and it\u2019s where our world lives<\/strong>. Many people think that all they have are these external costumes\u2014<strong>but when we put on the eyes and mind of Christ, we have a new pair of glasses. We can look around and know that the world is filled with infinite images of God.<\/strong> Isn\u2019t that a nicer world to live in? It\u2019s the ultimate political-social critique.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hope we\u2019re all moving in the direction of knowing who we really are, letting go of our preoccupation with how we look or measure up. As we come to a deeper acceptance of our True Self, we know our identity comes from God\u2019s love, not from what other people think or say about us. There\u2019s nothing wrong with wanting to present our best face; in fact, my mother would be disappointed if she thought I were saying otherwise. We just can\u2019t take any of it too seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1-500x305.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-22733\" width=\"768\" height=\"468\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1-500x305.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1-300x183.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1-768x469.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1-1536x938.png 1536w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/image-1-2048x1251.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Is the False Self? Father Richard describes the false self in the CAC\u2019s online course&nbsp;Immortal Diamond:&nbsp; The false self is all the things we pretend to be and think we are. It is the pride, arrogance, title, costume, role, and degree we take to be ourselves. It\u2019s almost entirely created by our minds, our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22731"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22731"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22736,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22731\/revisions\/22736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}