Self-love

Oh, I could go through all life's troubles singing,
Turning earth's night to day,
If self were not so fast around me, clinging
To all I do and say.

My very thoughts are selfish, always building
Mean castles in the air;
I use my love of others for a gilding
To make myself look fair.

...

Alas! no speed in life can snatch us wholly
Out of self's hateful sight;
And it keeps step, whenever we travel slowly
And sleeps with us at night...

O miserable omnipresence, stretching
Over all time and space,
How have I run from thee, yet found thee
reaching
The goal in every race.

Inevitable self! vile imitation
Of universal light-
Within our hearts a dreadful usurpation
Of God's exclusive right!

The opiate balms of grace may haply still thee,
Deep in my nature lying;
For I may hardly hope, alas! to kill thee,
Save by the act of dying.

Oh Lord! that I could waste my life for others,
With no ends of my own,
That I could pour myself into my brothers,
And live for them alone!

Such was a life Thou livest, self-abjuring,
Thine own pains never easing
Our burdens bearing, our just doom enduring
A life without self-pleasing!
~ Frederick William Faber


Sometimes I am totally blown away that some guy from the 1800s was able to say exactly what my heart is trying to get out...so much better than I ever could.