I've learned something very important from Phillip Rieff, namely, that I recognize who I am only by "saying no" to instinct. This I do in the guilty knowledge (of what I know I am capable of) against the light of God's absolute moral authority.
"Knowledge derived from the authority of charisma is no intellectual acceptance of renunciations; rather, ordinary everyday charisma, the practical personal knowledge of all, is the personal practice of renunciation. We learn on our bodies." Charisma, p 40.
The opposite is therapy, the renunciation of all renunciations. The world we (are invited to) live in more and more offers therapy, urging us to give up giving up. But only in renunciation can we live into our ideal selves in the loving, awful moral gaze of the Almighty.
There is a poem by Caroline Giltinan ("Achievement") which captures this, I think:
"The biggest thing I ever did
Was all inside of me;
There was a battle hardly won
With only God to see."
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