A Man After My Own Heart

Lacking employment, one is confronted with one's own self. It often occurs to me that if it weren't for people, I would certainly be living as a saint. Yet, I struggle very often to live with my own failing and countless deficiencies. When one is bored with one's own company and irritated at frequent blunders, a serious amount of self-correction (brought about by the divine light) is a mandatory solution.
Recently I have been privileged to spend a certain amount of time grappling with the Greek Fathers, whose intellectual and rhetorically merits vastly outweigh my own. However that is no shame. Reading from Gregory of Nazianzus (The Theologian) I found in Oration 42:

'..this is simply my temperament: on most subjects, I do not agree with the crowd, nor can I endure walking the same path as they do. That may be rash or ignorant, but it is nevertheless the way I habitually feel. The things that others enjoy annoy me, and I delight in what is annoying to others. So that I would not be astonished if I were to be locked up as a trouble-maker, or considered an idiot by the crowd.'


This is a consolation in my often irascible attitude to certain people or issues. But one must improve. I often like to reflect on the fact that if Jerome became a saint, I should certainly have a decent chance...