ECONOMY AND SELF VALUE

As I have been studying first century culture, I have come to realize the impact that social economies have played in determining where we place value.

 

To Love is to value.

 

It seems to me that as we began to value things as a society external to ourselves - money being the most impactful - we also devalued each other and, more importantly, our inner self. (Substitute Love for value in any of that last statement).

 

So all that we have been saying about needing to love ones self in order to love another, in order to love for the sake of loving or from an identity as Love, and not for the sake of needing someone else to love you/value you, can be framed in this social tendency to value things outside the self - thus neglecting to know the self as that of the greatest value; the value from which all other beneficial value springs forth. ("Love the Lord your God" means love yourself - God in you).

 

I have always been intrigued with the Christian use of terms coming from the Greek culture that externalize the dynamics of self-loving (value)  - all based on the term Oikos - eco  or household/family - these translations from Hebrew coming at the same time as the economic culture of society was developing moved the "household" and everything that is associated with a balanced and loving household, exterior to the individual psyche or soul. Our interpretations of value in a religious sense began to emphasize how we behaved more than who we are.

Incidentally, Ecumenicus (Latin) comes from Greek oikoumenikos, oikein to inhabit, oikos house. The spirit inhabits (oikein) the same house: the body, the community, humanity, the Earth...the cosmos...

"Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own..." (1 Cor. 6:19).

Who is living in you?

While we humans are both doers and be-ers, we express something active or we hold it as our "being" nature (identity), we seem to default our most obvious sense of self very often to the doing, the active expression of desire, which is external and "worldly" expression of the self. While within, in the being, is the True Self, the expression of God self. When we are present in the being self, we remember who we truly are. And the do-er should always emanate from the Be-er. The active Lover should always emanate from the Love, that we are - our divine nature. We don't 'purify' or find our essence in the Doing in the same way we can find it in the Being.

Personal integrity is your first priority. Your I AM is your relationship with God. You cannot be honest or effective or TRUE in the world unless you have your "house" in order first. This is why you must learn to BE and let your DOing come from your BEing. 

_/\_Peggy