Catholic Christian Mystic Hermit: Correspondence with Spiritual Friend

Thoughts shared with a correspondent and based on First Letter of John 3,7-10.

Children, let no one deceive you. The person who acts in righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous.
Whoever sins belongs to the devil, because the devil has sinned from the beginning. Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the devil.
No one who is begotten by God commits sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot sin because he is begotten by God.
In this way, the children of God and the children of the devil are made plain; no one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother.

I absolutely love everything the Apostle John writes.  He is succinct yet mystically poetic; he takes us to heights spiritually yet with quite practical and serious message, simple.

No one who is not righteous is not of Christ.  Those who ACT in RIGHTEOUSNESS are in Him.

So I must ask myself have I been acting in righteousness?  Have I been thinking in righteousness?  What is righteousness according to His Real Presence's view of righteousness?  Jesus teaches righteousness in words and by His example, and He cuts through illusions with truth even if his words are firm and tough.  Even His parables cut through and offend the ones who need to see themselves acting unrighteously.

Probably the main problem we humans have is trying to take over and alter and add to what His Real Presence so simply shared, taught, and said to do and be.

Instead the Church is like my gummed up spaghetti clumping of nerves in my spine, the Arachnoiditis, sending out abnormal and distorted nerve messages to various parts of my body and wreaking havoc with a healthy life including emotionally and mentally.  It all came from sin, the sin of a teen choosing to drink and drive and the sin of a husband who didn't like staying home with his children on a Friday night, and the sin of a wife and mother who was trying to appease a husband who did not want to be married nor have to interact with and didn't enjoy his wife or his children.  Unrighteousness just in that one example.  

And we see the unrighteousness in the Church system and structure as it has evolved, the man-created globs of laws, rituals, traditions, mandates, formalities, processes, corruption, vices feeding upon vices of power, prestige, position and possessions in people and clergy alike.  Individuals who are righteous do the righteous acts of charity and follow the teachings of Christ, seek to be in and follow His Living Word, strive to live God's Law of Love.  These righteous individuals are the ones who help the poor and love the downcast, who pray and worship and love His Real Presence despite the conglomeration of gummed up mess the "Church" has been and has become in the ensuing centuries.

I must not let that corrupt my own life, my seeking to act in righteousness in whatever way feasible.

Will take "Mercy" for a late morning walk and see about trying to teach her (with treats) to drop the ball or toy she wants me to throw for her to return.  Maybe the idea of getting her good enough to get certified to be taken to rehabs and hospital wards is a righteous attempt.  Other than that, I must clean up my unrighteous thoughts.  I know what the church has become, and not so righteous other than the individuals within Her who are righteous.  The others who are not righteous will always be mistreating others or so caught up in their rituals and created laws that will not be accepting of someone like me.  That in itself is a big signal of unrighteousness, just that simple mistreatment and unacceptance of one small person.  

So I must turn my examination away from that institution and to my own life and daily acts, thoughts, and emotions of righteousness or unrighteousness,a nd make the unrighteous to be righteous.  Seems so simple but is so difficult, of course!  Can I even be patient and self-giving to a dog?  Can I suffer more pain by taking her for a walk in the cold and impact pounding of lumbar spine on concrete sidewalk?  Or take time to play with the pup?  Clean up my mess  even in one room?

Has nothing to do with a church who God had me pass through the temporal passageway, but with the individuals and choices, of righteousness or not, each person--including me-- each soul, and God's Law of Love.