Jesus tells us to follow Him. In order to be totally free to do that, we are also told to let the dead bury the dead.
A new insight arrived during Mass, upon listening to this Scripture once again. It all seemed to connect with sideways crosses--those goofy crosses that we and others create from psycho-emotional dysfunction, issues, conflicts, and personal vices. We try to get others involved more often than not, wanting them to hover near or pity us, or sorrow and suffer with us, or sometimes even to be crucified with us.
Of course, no one can be martyred on a sideways cross. It is not possible to be crucified on one of these. Just think about it; visualize the set-up.
These sideways crosses and what they represent are equivalent to the dead, and people who attempt to carry them and to die on these dysfunctional crosses are not at all physically dead but are dead to the reality of freedom in order to follow Jesus...in order to help carry valid, God-allowed and sent crosses. We can't be free to die to ourselves on legitimate, right-side-up crosses if we are trying to hang ourselves on sideways crosses, or on others' sideways crosses.
Sometimes we do get enticed over into other people's sideways crosses, which is as bad as fooling around with our own.
Here are some examples of sideways crosses upon which the dead-to-the-spiritual realities in us or others try to bury the dead-of-vices in us.
An elderly woman puts down her over-middle-age daughter at family gatherings. She brings up points of the past, still trying to justify what she did as opposed to her daughter's reaction. The situations vary but the point is the same. The adult daughter has not confronted her mother on this but discusses it with another. It hurts her; she feels the pain and repeats it. When it is pointed out that she could, privately, ask her mother why she puts her daughter down to others, right in front of her own daughter, it is brought out that the mother would have excuses or denial. This may be so. It is a sideways cross that the mother has constructed and carried for years, and if she can get others to sympathize or agree to listen to the burden, then there are others involved in the sideways cross. It is a wrong cross, yet the mother feels such sorrow that her daughter does not see things her way. When it is pointed out to the daughter that the mother is only trying to crucify herself on a silly cross that is impossible for her to be martyred upon, the daughter replies, "My mother is crucifying me!" Well, this is not possible, for no one can be crucified on a sideways cross. One just thinks it is, and that is a delusion. But the daughter takes on the pain as if she was being crucified. It is pointed out that no one should touch another person's goofy cross that is created out of psycho-emotional dysfunction. Get rid of one's own sideways crosses, and for pity's sake, do not hover near someone else's.
Then there is the adult child who has moved away from a controlling mother. The mother's control has been a sideways cross for a long time, as these ridiculous crosses are built up over time, usually, wrought out of the person's sense of sorrow over that which is not of God's allowance. It is dis-ordered suffering. There is no point to it. So this controlling mother and father, for both are involved, shun the adult child for moving away to a new job situation. They attempt to get their friends to pity them, and make comments that they have invested so much in this adult child and grandchildren, and now look what they've done--moved away! The adult child feels the pain, for it is being shunned in a cruel way. The adult child knows the situation was not healthy, with much control going on beyond the years when parents are to be in charge, and yet the emotions begin to entangle in the parents' sideways cross. Soon, the adult child is downcast, and the adult child's young children sense the sadness and ask "Why?" Well, the adult child feels sad due to the lack of support and encouragement, and in being shunned--due to two older persons' dysfunctional crosses that they created out of their own feelings of pity and grief that they could not have their way. It boils down to that, doesn't it?
Now we have the married couple who have not gotten along for years. They have been in counseling for a several years, and yet there seems little to no progress. The wife is bothered by the faults of the husband, who deceives himself as to his faults and does things and says things which are not always accurate, so he lies. He does not like the wife knowing everything or controlling him, and the wife wants to point out his faults and to make him see that he does not tell the truth or see it as it should be seen. The husband rebels, as he perceives the wife as being a kind of authority figure over him. He says unkind things to her and becomes very passive aggressive in his behavior toward her. An adult child still living at home is used as a tool between the two of them, garnering his support this way and that. The wife begins to worry about what the husband might do or might say in a given situation, and what if that or this would happen? So she tells the husband he cannot do this or that which might lead to that or this. He tells her she cannot control what he does when he is not there with her. This is true. They each have sideways crosses, and neither is willing to lay the one or the other down. The wife's health has been affected from such upset and effort to control another's faults, to get him to change; and the husband has become more critical and mean in sniping comments, and denies his own faults. They'd be better off using their sideways crosses as a teeter totter and at least try to have some fun out of the misery. They are slowly wearing out through the aging process--but won't physically die on these crosses. But their spirits are become twisted and full of knot-holes.
There is the case of a man with psycho-sexual disorder who has many caught up in his sideways cross. They feel sorry for him because he is not suitable in certain positions, particularly as a role model and leader of young men, since he is diagnosed with ephebephilia (attraction to young men). He has struggled with internet pornography addiction. Yet, he has manipulated others into worrying about him, and they encourage him to re-apply for positions for which his sideways cross will not fit through the very door he should not enter.
What about the mother of teen children who pushes them to an extreme in expectation of perfection? Even the food that is put on their plates is sparingly dollupped, one spoon here and one spoon there. Much worry and fretting, such seriousness, and the sideways cross is born by the whole family.
Nothing Catholic hermit considers its own sideways crosses. It has them, for sure. One is over-doing and causing itself more physical suffering, and then a sideways cross is created, for it could have paced itself instead. There are logical reactions to building a cross made of wrong-action. And then, others might be enticed to suffer along, if the nothing's voice is tense or spirit beleaguered by too much pain. Nothing creates a sideways cross full of suffering from its own insecurities in relationships. Or, it glums onto other persons' sideways crosses, trying to help them see that they are silly sideways crosses, and not making much headway. So nothing wears down, or gets frustrated, and ensnares in the others' sideways crosses--usually of psycho-emotional dysfunction.
Most of these sideways crosses are created out of issues with relationships. They always are built with splintery wood that makes all kinds of tiny ouchies, and nailed with pride, pride, pride. Self-pity is embedded in such sideways crosses. And much blindness. The person who creates a sideways cross does not see that its cross is self-created and the crown of thorns it pulls down on the his or her own head, woven from his or her own dysfunctions and faults.
Besides all this, we humans tend to (attempt to) erect our sideways crosses on clay-baked soil or in muck. The stubby arm will not stay upright, and the lengthwise leg goes down at an angle, no way to stand upright.
These are sideways crosses, examples of them--with plenty more examples available--and nothing Catholic hermit has some work to do on burning out and tossing out its own sideways crosses: negative memories, regrets, some poor pain management, relational insecurities, and standing beside the foolishness of other people's sideways crosses.
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