Yesterday's word of the day seemed appropriate to me:

osculation \os-kyuh-LAY-shuhn\, noun:
The act of kissing; also: a kiss.

as today is my anniversary. Happy Anniversary, my love! Thank you for loving me, I look forward to many more years.

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I was blessed to be asked to write an essay on Father Thomas Hopko's Forty Maxims for the fantastic Forty Maxims Blog. Today is my humble contribution:

ETA: maybe I should include the Maxim, eh?
29. Don’t defend or justify yourself.

When I read this maxim, my first thought was a quote from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers “The same Abba Macarius while he was in Egypt discovered a man who owned a beast of burden engaged in plundering Macarius' goods. So he came up to the thief as if he was a stranger and he helped him to load the animal. He saw him off in great peace of soul saying, 'We have brought nothing into this world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.' (1Tim.6.7) 'The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' (Job 1.21).

While I consider that we shouldn’t be attached to our possessions, and to let them own us, I realized upon later reflection this maxim is warning us against justifying ourselves. We always want to tell the story, as if somehow we miss the mark less if we have a good reason. When the pit of my stomach reminds me that I have done something wrong, it is easy for me to fall into this trap. Justification leads to rationalization.

I am pretty sure that my defense at the Dread Judgment Seat of Christ does NOT start with “so-and-so did it first” or the even more judgmental “well, they did THIS”. When I pick up my sin and examine it, the measuring stick isn’t what others have done, but what I have done. I recently read that St. Isaac the Syrian said, “A man who is truly humble is not troubled when he is wronged at he says nothing to justify himself against the injustice but accepts slander as truth.” This maxim reminds us that our actions aren’t for how other people see us, but how we are seen by God. When we learn to stop justifying ourselves we learn to accept responsibility.

I have far to go on applying this maxim to my life.