Called to inner transformation
The foundation of purpose
“…but like, what is my purpose?” is the small part of a conversation I hear as I pedal my singlespeed Raleigh through the local park. It seems the central question of my generation.
Everything is nothing. Telling small humans - a.k.a. children - they can be anything they want might not be as great as it sounds. Sure, it ascertains that these tiny humans don’t get their infantile hopes and dreams crushed. But it also leaves them with little guidance.
Some people are blessed - or cursed - with a wildly certain purpose. Many are not. Because modernity has placed the burden of figuring out what you want fully on the individual, a chronic existential crises emerges in those without clear answers.
Christianity doesn’t offer a purpose as specific as: become a firefighter. It does, however, call each and every person to a lifelong task. Inner transformation.
What is inner transformation?
We’re all born imperfect sinners. Our aims are not ordered correctly. Plato already noticed this. He saw the human soul as having three parts.
Ratio. Will. Desires.
Incorrectly ordered, man is a slave to his desires. The ratio and will are employed by the desires to fulfill as many of them as possible. Drugs, alcohol, junkfood, sex and luxuries become paramount in this person’s life.
Correctly ordered, the ratio rules and uses the will to suppress the desires when necessary. This prevents a person from destroying their body and soul with the aforementioned.
The inner transformation is the daily and continuous process to order your soul correctly.
Seven vices. Seven virtues.
Christianity - building on the four cardinal sins of Plato - offers seven cardinal sins. These are things that exist in all human beings, and all have the duty to wage an inner battle against them.
Pride - Excessive belief in one’s own abilities or importance, a sense of superiority.
Greed - An excessive desire for material wealth or gain, beyond what is necessary.
Wrath - Uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and hatred.
Envy - A desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or possessions.
Lust - Intense, uncontrolled longing or desire, often sexual.
Gluttony - Overindulgence and overconsumption of anything to the point of waste.
Sloth - Laziness or spiritual apathy, a reluctance to exert oneself.
Looking at the modern world, the sins reign supreme. Social media offer us pride, greed, envy, lust and gluttony. OnlyFans a combination of greed, lust and sloth. Politics a feast of pride, greed and wrath.
The cardinal sins bleed from our souls into the world, and from the world back into our souls. They are encouraged by the world we built, and we built this world because we encouraged them. Void of the language to pursue inner transformation, we are doomed to bathe in sin and call it good.
Yet the language is there. You just read it. It’s in books we forgot about or ridiculed. And these books also offer the things you can aim for.
Love - Loving God above all things and neighbor as oneself for the love of God.
Hope - Desire for the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as one’s happiness.
Faith - Belief in God and all that He has revealed.
Prudence - The wisdom to discern the true good in every circumstance and choose the right means to achieve it.
Justice - The constant and firm will to give what is due to God and neighbor.
Fortitude - Courage in the face of difficulties and constancy in pursuing good; overcoming fear.
Temperance - Moderation in the attraction of pleasures and balance in the use of created goods.
These are what the inner transformation should focus on. To both not become what we are and to become more than we think we could ever be.
Knowledge about this is a first step that allows one to answer the call of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14)
All of us will stumble and fall into sin as we give in to our desires. All of us will also enter through the wide gate. This is the fate of the sinner. Embrace it. Aim up and do not lose sight of the narrow gate.
The Spirit of Transformation
Reading this can be confronting. It means you’ve missed the mark since…forever. It opens up the road to harsh self-judgement and even self-hatred as you try to live up to these difficult standards.
That’s why love, grace and forgiveness are such powerful elements of Christianity. They offer the correct answer to dealing with our inevitable imperfection.
If trying to follow Christ leads to self-hatred, you’re doing it wrong. The inner transformation must be done in a spirit of love, grace and forgiveness towards the self.
Inner transformation ≠ Purpose
Inner transformation isn’t the answer to the modernity-induced chronic existential crisis. But it does offer a path. A place to aim. More importantly, a worthy place to aim. Forward and upward in a loving, graceful and forgiving spirit.
By walking this path, the everything that modernity offers turns into a more graspable amount of options. The inner transformation offers a strong inner foundation upon which you can make choices about what to do with your life.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.” (Matthew 7:24-27)
This isn’t about a house. This is about your soul. Those who have built it on rock - i.e. ordered it correctly - can withstand the inevitable issues that life throws at us much better than those who have built it on sand - i.e. who have incorrectly ordered souls.
A strong foundation causes things to fall into place. Purpose isn’t chased erratically. It is found, given by God. A weak foundation will cause you to anxiously search for a purpose.
“…but like, what is my purpose?”
To transform yourself. To order your soul correctly. To have faith that on that strong foundation, things will fall into place.