I am what I desire. . .

Look around you.  Ours is a world and a life filled with desire and one in which we are more able to grasp our desires than any world that went before us.  We seem to want for nothing except contentment, happiness, hope, and peace.  Strange, because we enjoy nearly unfettered desire and a life nearly unrestrained from pursuing and obtaining what we desire.  Self-expression has become the motto of our time and there is hardly anything that would dare to challenge our self-expression.  Some of these behaviors would have landed you in jail in a bygone era but today they put you on the covers of magazines and in the photo essays of journalism and media.  For every one who looks away in shame there are voices urging them on to even more blunt expressions of their desire.  It has become normal to be flamboyant and it has become virtuous to be filled with pride.

We insist in no uncertain terms that no one can restrain our self-expression or tell us that we are wrong or fail to respect our pronouns or approve of the lies we have told ourselves.  Such is nothing less that the voice of hater and these things are the stuff of which laws and rules are being made every day.  Every day we put our children on school busses or drop them off at the public facilities supposedly to be educated in the three Rs and then at the end of the day we meet them at the bus stop or pick them up and drop them home after people with values very different from ours have had their way with their minds and hearts.  It might be called abuse in an older setting but today it is the way of enlightenment -- you are the sum of your desires, no one can infringe upon your desires (except the thought police who have decided what is out of bounds), and you are a terrible person if you disagree.  These children have come home thinking that the old history was full of racist lies, that the institutions of our society are hopelessly racist, that gender if fluid, that you decide who you are, that they have probably been victimized in some way by white, hate-filled, religious bigots, and that their families are dysfunctional except when they are under the rainbow.

As orthodox Christians we acknowledge that the statement I am what I desire is exactly the language of Eden, of sin, and of death.  It is the voice of death that kills the soul and spews the fruits of its decay across culture and society in the guise of truth.  But that is the problem.  Lies have become the my truth of today and the voices that would challenge such poisoned foolishness are daily being silenced more and more.  Addiction is a disease of desire and it is the cancer that is killing us and everything noble, right, good, and beautiful.  We have left behind the once vaunted institutions of marriage, family, and service to others in favor of the rabid pursuit of the so-called "authentic self" -- whatever on earth that might be.  Everything must not bow before the altar of this unconstrained desire that is masked as the authentic self.  What we do, what we purchase, what we say, what we eat, and what entertains us have all become captive to the mighty deity of desire.  Now nothing is more important than me:  my gender, my sexual desires, my music, my amusement, my drugs, my pursuit of my dreams.  The institutions of old are falling away because marriage is too constraining upon my unfettered freedom to pursue the me I think I am, family demands too much of my money, time, and energy, and education must shield me from the things I deem objectionable or offensive.   In this world, we will bow before the fake science of gender identity or vaccine justifications but we will not allow the real scientist to speak or the real medicine to tell the truth or the real religion to explain why we are so messed up.

Blessed Augustine had it right.  There is no rest for us except the rest Christ offers.  There is no freedom but the liberty He bestows.  There is no peace but His peace that passes understanding.  There is no contentment except that which is content in Christ.  There is no happiness except the joy of the Lord.  There is no truth that endures but the truth of His Word.  There is no desire worthy of God's commendation but every desire requires Him to make it new.  Ours is not a world which needs more political leaders or choices or laws or rules or interesting things to challenge our boredom.  We need one thing only -- Christ and Him crucified and the efficacious Word and Sacraments that deliver what they sign to bring Christ to us and us to Christ.  The only blessing in becoming what we desire is when the Holy Spirit intervenes to teach us to love and desire the things of God and His Kingdom revealed in Christ Jesus, our Savior.