This morning I was thinking of the sacrifices of Lent again and I thought of overvalued dependencies. Here I began to ponder my attachement to my will. So not only do I give up things that are not good for me but I give up things that I want.

The great struggle in my life comes from my desires coming between me and God. These desires gradually, slightly, but inevitably become larger over the course of the year. During this season I give up something I desire greatly as an excercise in letting go of the things I have overvalued.

I renew my focus on God as the most important source of fulfillment in life.

At Mass today Fr. Barry spoke about people's delusion of the truth about themselves. He used an analogy of the alcoholic who endures an incredibly dysfunctional life but cannot see the truth about himself that his drinking is causing the problems. His analogy was to show how people prefer not to see the truth about their sin and that Jesus is the light of truth. This got me thinking about the Living Water and the "Light" characteristic of it.

Fr. Barry used one word however that got me thinking about the misunderstanding of how our powerlessness is different than normal character defects. He said that the alcoholic "prefers" not to see the truth.

I thought of how I preferred not to see the truth of my sinful nature when it came to leading a spiritual life. But this was different than when I was rendered incapable of seeing the truth by the overwhelming obsession. An addict/alcoholic has an obsession that was developed as a result of an intoxicating substance in the body that has altered a person's brain chemistry.

I also felt that there is a gradient on the power scale of sinful obsession that when exceeded becomes overwhelming and takes ahold of a person so as to control the thinking. The person becomes deluded and powerless. This is also might be the boundary that distinguishes when a person develops a patholical, psychological, behavioral disorder. In short sin is usually not a form of true powerlessness but it can become that.