The Cobbler's Tale:
A Sermon on Self Love & Selfishness
1/22/1520
Welcome everyone, and thank you so incredibly much for coming out to hear me speak this evening - especially those of you who know well how long winded I can be, and were still brave enough to come. If you do not know me, I am Seraphine Dhamarov, a priestess of Waylumi's temple here in Gahlen. And without further adieu, I should very much like to present to you a story that I hold near and dear: the Cobbler's Tale.
There once was a not so little village called Longmarch - an odd name for a town, indeed! But the name was quite apropos, for Longmarch was less a collective town and more a series of very disparate houses, shoppes, farms, all spread miles and miles apart. At the very end of it all was a little pub where the denizens of Longmarch dutifully trekked each and every day after the long hike to work, then made their way home once more. In short, the people of Longmarch had committed to walking. A lot.
This was how it was, and how it had always been!
As you can imagine, a good pair of shoes was quite the necessity in Longmarch - which made the town's only cobbler a vastly popular man. Bren the cobbler had inherited the trade of repairing and resoling shoes from his father, who learned it from his father before him. But not his father before him. He raised yaks.
Bren was a deeply kind man, and because of his family's monopoly over the important trade of shoemaking in Longmarch, he also had the means to work generously for the people of his little town. Business was a neverending stream, because as you know, boots will always need repairing! One fall brought with it a particularly busy season for the shoe business. So hefty was his workload that Bren found himself too busy to repair his own boots.
"It'll be just fine, I'll fix mine tomorrow. Old Shep needs a sturdy pair of boots for harvest,' Bren said one day. The next, it was, "Not to worry. The midwife needs her shoes in good order, for babies hardly pay attention to calendars!" So he fixed the midwife's shoes that day. The following day, Bren said to himself, "Nonis the town drunk needs his boots shipshape, lest he stumble on his way to get his daily pint!" So Bren took care of Nonis' boots, and vowed to tend to his own the next. And the next... and the next... until several long months had gone by, and Bren's shoes had all but fallen apart from the long walk to and from his shop.
One spring day, a most ominous line of people had formed outside the cobbler's shop. They rapped on the door and peered into darkened windows, wondering where Bren was. He hadn't come to work that day, or the one before it, or the one before.
It turned out that, like anyone trying to walk around for months on end in soleless shoes, Bren's feet were just entirely mangled and he was unable to make the long walk to his shoppe. As such, he was forced to defer work for all the rest of the spring and summer. And so, alas, the people of Longmarch spent the rest of their year limping to and fro each and every day, all because the cobbler didn't know when to fix his own shoes.
It's a pretty common story, and one you may have heard variations of. A farmer who feeds everyone but himself and starves come wintertime; a healer who heals everyone but himself and dies before the battle is done; and so on and so forth. The stories all end in similar fashion: because one person failed to recognize the importance of self, a ripple effect spread outwards, ultimately damaging those around them. The reason this story, and this sermon in particular, is so important to me is because I think that for a faith that follows Love as a paramount tenet, many of us both within the faith and externally, sometimes forget to apply that same Love to ourselves.
So as I examined myself, my faithmates, and many of my friends, I began to wonder: is there a way to attend to yourself without being selfish? Is there room in a faith founded upon Love to extend to ourselves the very same Love we are taught to give so freely to others?
"Be generous with the blessings given unto you, and show compassion to those souls in need."
It's right there, written in our tenets. I believe very much that this extends not just to others, but to the self when the self is in need. But before I delve into the importance and value of self care, I think it's deeply important to accurately quantify the difference between self love and selfishness. I am not here to encourage the latter, or to put narcissism upon a pedestal. While they can sometimes wear a similar visage, the two are deeply different creatures.
Those who engage in self Love recognize that it fills you up, balances you out, and ultimately puts you in a position where you are capable of then passing that Love onto others. Self Love isn't self service: instead, it is the Wisdom of understanding and accepting that in order to serve others, we also have to care for ourselves. Simply put, self Love implies considering yourself as valuable as others - no more, no less, and recognizing the truth that you play an important role in the lives of others. You matter.
If we refer to the Cobbler's Tale as a model, a healthy sense of self Love would have given Bren the understanding that, in order to make sure his peers were walking well, he had to do the same for himself.
Conversely, selfishness is defined as lacking consideration for other people and is concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure. Selfishness is over indulgent and is motivated not by a respect or acceptance of one's self, but by greed. Selfishness and greed are the same depleting beast - and are often synonymous to hollow attempts at fulfillment, or a response to fear.
If Bren the Cobbler had a perfectly good pair of shoes and put off the needs of others in order to make himself a decorative pair of boots impress the ladies, he would have been acting out of selfishness, rather than self Love.
By recognizing when to be generous and when to be self attentive, you’re cultivating a powerful tool that creates healthier relationships and extends outwards to those around you. In caring for the self, you're allowing that self to become a more effective presence in service to whatever it is you have given yourself to, whether it is a guild, a person, a religion, a job, or any other cause you hold dear. This applies to clerics of Waylumi, but also servants of Dahkoar and druids of Ateraan. To the Warriors who serve so diligently and give so much of themselves, the Knights who shield the Crown, to the merchants and traders who work tirelessly to help their cities, and all the people in between.
I also find that the Lady sheds much Light on this topic. Beyond the Waylumi tenet of Love itself, each of the remaining three provide for us tools and measures that allow us to better understand ourselves, our interactions with the world around us, and how to find a sense of self Love that is devoid of selfishness - or at least give us the wherewithal to recognize the difference.
Selfishness cannot coexist with the tenet of Honor. From a selfish point of view, an individual is justified in being dishonest or underhanded if it means they will get what they want. This attitude of 'the ends justify the means' isn't cohesive with self Love because self Love implies a regard for and a connection to others that selfishness is entirely lacking in. It is self Love, not pride or selfishness masquerading as love, but authentic self Love that is aligned with integrity.
We can see Wisdom's influence on self Love in the Cobbler's Tale. Or perhaps more accurately, the lack of it. The Cobbler possessed so, so much Love in his heart, but lacked the Wisdom to see that Love and kindness are not a finite resource. Had he utilized Waylumi's Wisdom, he would have understood that in showing the same Love to himself that he showed to others, he was opening himself up both to service to others. I believe Wisdom is also the tenet that helps us to recognize when sacrifice is necessary, for there are indeed times when it is.
Finally, and perhaps most simply, Vigilance is the tenet that calls for the Light to shine from 'both within and without;' it is the tenet of clear sight that pierces through the darkness - but also through delusions and lies. Vigilance is your ward against misleading yourself, and with it, you will be able to objectively look at the motivations of your own actions and ask: am I doing this out of Love for the valuable person that I am, or am I simply doing this to satisfy my own ego?
In truth, one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this today is because it's something I struggle with a lot - and if I do, I think maybe some of you might, too.
Someone who knows me so very well, and whose Wisdom I carry with me each and every day, gave me a bit of advice once. When I first became High Priestess (and sometimes still), there were moments where I feel tired, lost, and drained. I felt like a bit of butter spread over way too much bread. And I went to him one such day, and no doubt complained incessantly, to the point where he began to laugh at me.
He said to me: Seraphine, you cannot pour for others from an empty cup. Go fill yours up.
In closing, If I could ask you to take anything away from my sermon today aside from some snacks, it's the knowledge that you are vastly deserving of Love, and that it does not make you selfish to give that Love to yourself. It was always meant to be given. The moment we all decide that self Love is healthy and optimal for everyone is the moment we breed a more uplifted and whole society. Be a cup for others capable of pouring, not an empty one sitting alone on the shelf. For today, why not start with loving you?