Thomas Merton applies this to our life in Christ as well. We get trapped in our small selves rather than being free to be someone much larger than we might otherwise be. It requires courage, a letting go, an imagination. “The mind that is the prisoner of conventional ideas, and the will that is the captive of its own desire, cannot accept the seeds of an unfamiliar truth and a supernatural desire…. I must learn therefore to let go of the familiar and the usual and consent to what is new and unknown to me. I must learn to ‘leave myself’ in order to find myself by yielding to the love of God.”
Isn’t this the Lenten rhythm of dying and rising?