Jesus is better than "narcissism."

I have a confession to make, O reader. I've recently come into a job (praise Jesus!) which pays money. With money, I'm able to tithe and begin paying off loans and am able to buy gifts for friends, family, and finally myself. One of these gifts I bought for myself was a magazine subscription to Esquire. I'm totally in it just for the overpriced fashion tips and manly advice. Just sayin'. (It's awkward reading it whenever it's a picture of a ... barely clad woman on the cover. Like Megan Fox on the February 2013 edition)

Anyways, in the January 2013 edition, a small article called "A Thousand Words With Stephen Marche" featured narcissism, a vice of man and a "personality disorder" according to the secular psychologist's DSM-IV.

Wait.

A personality disorder?! The same gets said about conduct misbehavior in children, severe forms of anxiety, depression, anger, and dramatic tendencies. Phobias fall in this category also.

No matter how much I love labels, Psychology has done a number on its students who believe that labels give a person power over the human condition of sin and misery. If we can label it, we can fix it!

However, the author of this article has a lot of truth to say. He begins by calling out the act of television watching as being "inherently an act of narcissism" because it "both feeds and fuels what Freud described as the core of the narcissistic personality-- 'the delusion of being watched' " (Marche 56). Given this, the author goes about to describe how television's narcissism "is currently shifting ground;" the old narcissism of Sex and the City is being slowly replaced by new narcissists of Louie, Community, and Arrested Development who are self-loathing of their self-obsession (Marche 56). The author describes how narcissism has come a long way from a so-called "newly-found" psychological disorder describing sexual pleasure taken from one's self coined about a hundred years ago to the standard way of life here in the United States. "Narcissism," he says, is "no longer, properly speaking, a disease at all" (Marche 58). Apparently Americans spent twice as much money ($10 billion) on plastic surgery in 2011 than for NASA's funding of the same year ($5 billion). Ten percent of young people have narcissistic tendencies, while only 3% of older adults display the same tendencies. The author continues to point out that the American economy runs on narcissism, as does education submit to the desires of the "average" American parents' superior valuing of their children's self-esteem over and above their virtue or knowledge. Technology likewise plays a role in binding men with narcissistic tendencies-- smartphones eliminate the need to look up, ask for directions or advice, or pay attention to the world outside of a haunting glow of a computer's screen. "Narcissism, not love, makes the world go round," the author admits (Marche 58).

But this is not the end, even for an editor of Esquire. He continues this theme by pointing out one of the supposed solutions with a surprising statistic: drug abuse has dropped 30% in 30 years and cocaine 40% in the last 7 years, but Adderall is on the rise. "Vapid self-indulgence has been replaced by scrupulous self-management" states the author, and he concludes by resting on Freud's theories: "There is a cure [for narcissism] by love and a cure by analysis. Only a lucky few can manage the former. For everybody else, there's television" (Marche 58). 

Freud meant something different when he said that love is the answer for a narcissist's woes, but the word remains the same (at least in English!). "Love is all you need" asserts the philosopher Lennon, and he's right... if Love is bound in the triune personhood of the living God. Jesus is better than the vapid self-indulgence of the twenty-first century because He endures. He is better because He is incomprehensibly complex in the riches of His grace to mankind. Jesus is better because He is the High Priest forever and the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world. Jesus is better because He is sovereign over all things, and He can thwart the most cleverly laid schemes of the self-managed person who prides him/herself in being the "master of his/her own destiny." Jesus is better because He has all the answers to life, the universe, and everything. Jesus is better because He knows more than Google. Jesus is better because He makes the world go round by the word of His command.

Works Cited:

Marche, Stephen. "In Praise Of The New Narcissism." Esquire Jan. 2013: 56-58. Print.

Who cares about your lonely soul?

We strive toward a larger goal/ Our little lives don't count at all! ("Red and Black," from Les Miserables)

Les Miserables was beautiful. I took a Muslim girl to see it, quite by accident. I have 17 draft posts that I've yet to complete, and half of them look like they'll turn out to be chunky. I served as a substitute teacher for CCA's 3rd-5th grade class and got carried away teaching the crossing of the Jordan River story in Judges 3 that the children didn't get to do their English lessons. I'll reprise that role on Tuesday. I found my gifted fountain pen (thanks, Karina! You can follow her here: http://ninjak322.blogspot.com/). I'm soon going to shave my head to find solidarity with my grandfather'

But those are just little asides that don't matter much. The living and true God does indeed care for our lonely souls, however, and has made our joy from His glory. Salvation is the theme of this world's story. Praise be to God that our little lives are part of that larger goal!

But reader, some of those amazing Bible truths and cool stories from psychology and co. will have to wait. My grandmother is dying and she may not last the week. She was my mother for the times my own was lacking. She exemplified faith and a doulos's heart of worship; she stamped these on me as my inheritance. She has full confidence in her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Q1. What is thy only comfort in life and death?
Answer: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with His precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto Him. 

#94 in the red trinity hymnal- "How Firm A Foundation," verse 5 & 6

"E'en down to old age all My people shall prove
My sovereign, eternal, unchangeable love;
and when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn, 
like lambs they shall still in My bosom be borne."

"The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I'll never, no never, no never forsake."

BOR_Chapter 11: Freshman Year (9th grade)

Recall your freshman year in high school. Describe the highs and lows of your first year of high school.

Freshman year... I wish that I could relive you, but I also love the way God has worked you perfectly.

This topic is really pertinent to my life, because I can see my little brother live his freshman year and make [both] similar and different blunders like the ones I'm familiar with in my own history, and I distinctly remember the exact hostility and rebellious attitude he possesses equally in my own life three years ago. Three years is a long time to recall details on demand, but not quite long enough to recall the significant long-term memories. I do remember a lot of trivial things about freshman year, though...

Freshman year was a real psychological trip because I was accustomed to the superior feeling of owning Middle School as a big, bad 8th grader. But the ladder only leveled off to reveal a bigger ladder, which I had to climb from the first rung yet again!

Freshman year was great because I finally got off the perpetually-tardy bus at the high school, so I had a few more minutes to find my locker, among upperclassmen. That was weird. I remember always loaning money to Curtis Post; he was such an expert at mooching. I remember making new friends out of old acquaintances and befriending new kids.I remember first really hearing blatant profanity at school. I remember first really appreciating the gospel preached weekly at my church.

Freshman year: I first began to realize I wasn't so alone to come from a broken home. Freshman year: I learned that timidity was unacceptable in reality. I learned how to do all sorts of events in Track and Field, eventually settling for Long Jump and High Jump after I grew sick of running forever on the riverbed (a necessary training event for distance events) and getting shin splints from sprinting events and Triple Jump.

I learned a lot about life in my freshman year in high school, and I now understand as a senior (finally!) what my father meant when he always told me I was disadvantaged because I was young [FSAE: I'm a year young for my class] and had less "life experience." I do not regret any bit of it, although I do wish I was more mature in my actions, because I can't give advice to my little brother without feeling at least a little bit of remorseful hypocrisy when I remember how terrible I was when I was his age.