You may know that joke about the graffiti on the wall of a university toilet. It consists of three quotations:
'To be is to do' – Socrates.
'To do is to be' – Jean-Paul Sartre.
'Do be do be do' – Frank Sinatra.
Well, I think we could add to that list, that tongue-twister of a passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans today, where he says:
'I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.'
Now as we smile at the contortions Paul is putting himself through here, to describe his inner turmoil, we may also sympathise with him, very keenly.
'I do not understand my own actions,' Paul says. 'For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. … I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do'.
I can’t help myself, Paul seem to be saying. I want to live a virtuous, Godly life. I know what I should be doing to make that happen. But I always seem to end up doing the opposite instead. …
– from my talk today, On becoming unburdened.
