Hubris

Tonight (or more accurately, tomorrow morning at 2:00 AM) we will set our clocks forward one hour and begin our annual ritual of thinking we are the masters of time.  We are not.  Never have been, never will be.  We may track it ever more precisely, but despite our best efforts, it still marches on.  The seasons pass, people age and die, the world goes on.  Nothing will really change other than I will lose an hours sleep before a busy day.

I know I sound like the proverbial cranky old man yelling at kids to stay off his lawn but I think we have a bigger problem here, one that preoccupied the ancient Greek dramatists: hubris.  We think we are bigger, better, more important than we are.  It's not.  This isn't too say we're nothing, but to encourage a healthy sense of perspective, to see things for what they are, to acknowledge we are not at the center of the universe.  God is.

So, another reason for us to repent during this Lent.  Let us repent for our hubris.  Let us repent for playing God.

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