Daily Reflection February 21, 2025 Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 339 In the opening of today’s gospel reading, we hear Jesus telling his disciples and followers to deny themselves and to lose their lives in order to save it. What does it mean to lose one’s life so that it can be saved? No doubt this is a most challenging message to understand – and even harder one to carry out. But Jesus’ message in the Gospel of Mark asks us to do just that. What does this mean for us today, and how does this message work into our day-to-day lives in 2025? This important message from Jesus has been very impactful for me as I have reflected on it over the past week. When I was younger (like last week), I used to think that Jesus was talking about “denying” myself of the things I enjoy, like a nightly bowl of ice cream as some sort of penance or sacrifice. But, as I sat with this reading, the notion of “denying” and “losing in order to gain” goes way beyond giving up my nightly bowl of ice cream. The more I reflected on the reading, the more I was drawn to the word “life” that Jesus is referring to as being the primary focus of the message. Certainly, my life goes beyond loving to have a bowl of ice cream in the evening. What is that thing that I really love, and is that thing defining my life? And even further, why is Jesus asking me to give it up so that I can save my life? My reflections lead me to consider my thoughts and actions throughout each day. After all, it would seem to make sense to assume that whatever I am thinking about and doing each day is likely a pretty good depiction and description of my life. What I found through this reflection exercise was a little disturbing and, at the very least, humbling. It seems that at the root of many of my thoughts each day is a comparison and competition with others for some kind of superior position. This happens at work on intellectual topics and just about everywhere else with my opinions about who will win the big game this weekend or the latest political news (and there is a lot of that going around these days). Is this my life? Most of my thoughts are self-referential. In other words, I seem to be all too happy to apply nearly every situation to me and my life by comparing and competing for who is the bigger victim, me or them (and the narrative that runs through my head almost always has me the bigger victim). It seems that the control tower that sits atop my shoulders has a default mechanism based on my ego that always wants to look good, look right, and look smart. If I am spending most of my time thinking about building and protecting this narrative, what does that say about my life? To be fair (and compassionate) to myself, I often do catch myself getting caught up in the self-referential narratives that run through my head throughout the day and as I lay in bed at night. I consciously try to shift the focus away to capture the larger reality of life where I am not the center of everything. But this is hard and takes continual work. I love playing the victim, and somehow, it feels good. But if I can let go of those thoughts and actions, the feeling is always better. Is this what Jesus is talking about in today’s gospel message? Maybe if I can resist the temptation to put myself at the center of everything and to not take myself quite so seriously and at the same time use my gifts and talents to be the person that I’m meant to be, I can then move closer to “The Kingdom of God” as Jesus says. For me, in 2025, this likely means that I don’t take the outcome of the Super Bowl quite so seriously (because it is not a reflection about me personally), do not get so upset about the latest political headline (because it is not purposely apposing my personal values), and not get so upset when I do not know all the information about a question at work (because it is not a reflection of who I am as a whole). If I can start to let go (i.e., lose) of these things that seem to be of great value in my life, then I can start to actually live life the way Jesus describes it – in the Kingdom of God. (And as a bonus, I can probably still enjoy my nightly bowl of ice cream.)