mud in the face

Who was it, I wonder, who discovered the cleansing effects of coating one's body with mud and letting it sit right there and dry and harden and wash it all off again?  In most normal daily activities we would consider mud on the face as dirty, to be avoided in the first place and washed asap.  Nevertheless, I indulge myself a mudding, faithfully, each week.  

The dirt got in my eyes this week.  In the form of a letter to the Philippians in which Paul speaks of his doing vs God's doings in him, as an example of what each of us ought to be, "Not that I...am already perfect, but I press on...because Christ Jesus has made me his own" (3:12).  Whether it's in my personality or my upbringing or merely a part of being human, I find myself tormented and yet passionate about my own perfection.  Be it a good reputation, being known for simple punctuality or blameless in murdering others--those whom I discount as beneath my company--I strive daily for confidence in the flesh.  To what end?  My confidence is dashed on the rocks of Paul's boast, "whatever gain I had, I counted as loss" (3:7).   The pride-happy satisfaction I achieve in works of cultural right-ness will not attain for me the resurrection from the dead.   And if I die like Rover, dead all over, I have failed, I lost the fight, I have nothing, not a thing to show for all my self-made veneer of goodness.  

What help is there, what mud will cleanse me free me of the blemish that is my self-mutilation of good works by pride?  Somehow, "it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure;" I must "be poured out as a drink offering;" I must lose everything to "gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law"--and to think how many laws I make for myself and judge others by--"but that which comes through faith in Christ" (2:13,17, 3:8-10).   It's the power of his resurrection that I want, not my own flesh-zeal, his sufferings I must find in common with him, as he works by faith and patience in the spirit of a man, to revive him from among the dead, and into his glorious body.