unnatural passions

I am sitting here beside my young daughter's bed watching her fall asleep. She insists on the comfort of my presence to drift off to sleep. Sometimes I stare at her like this, in love with the delicate flare of her tiny nostrils, and the way her little fingers curl around mine. Other times I am, honestly, just impatient to leave the room and do what I want. Those are the times when I miss the moment's beauty entirely. I deny myself stillness in exchange for hurry. This cycle is vicious, and hard to recognize.

I am thinking now about my passions. I have many, some natural and some unnatural that I constantly come face to face with and battle. It's scary to consider that even something good can become an unnatural passion, corrupted by desires of our flesh. Say, a person is a gifted writer, but that writing becomes self-seeking and proclaims righteousness in self and degrades others by constant criticism. Who is more destructed, the reader or the author? I'd say the author. I have denied my sins and acted horribly enough times that I have started to understand that I am the author of all my miseries. No matter how many times and how brilliantly I condemn and blame others, I gain nothing but arrogance- I mislead myself and while ruling with wild abandon my own passions overtake me and dash me against the backwards stepping stones, which I laid myself through haphazard unwillingness to love.

Where does forgiveness come into battling passions? I heard a homily a few weeks ago and I cannot forget it. It echoes through my day like a haunt. Father said that truly forgiving means asking for forgiveness even when you're not the worst of the conflict, even if you are sure you've done nothing wrong. I'm paraphrasing sadly here, but what he said was the best I've heard on forgiveness thus far. I had the idea that we should always forgive, and ask for forgiveness, but this notion of asking for forgiveness no matter the circumstances is hard to swallow. I think it speaks of that holiness Orthodoxy encourages all of us to seek. This charge is above self, above what basic rights we think we have. I feel that I have a right to my views, to my thoughts, to my own ways of living, when in fact I only have the right to beg forgiveness. No matter what.

I don't know quite what to do with this, but I know it's important.

Back to the research paper, now. Which is quite fun.