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Five Signs of a Covert Narcissist: Judas Iscariot
The marks of a covert narcissist are not very different from those of most narcs. They all wish to appear as important and particularly righteous or better than others. The main difference is that a covert narcissist lacks the aggression and the overt behaviors of most narcs. Generally passive-aggressive, the covert narcissist often plays the victim while quietly undermining others. The covert narcissist does in secret what most other narcissists do in the open. But the signs of any narcissist remain the same. Here is a short list: A personal sense of grandiosity A fantasy life that revolves around being influential, famous, and/or important A frequent exaggeration of their intelligence…
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The Kiss of Judas and the Mystery of Iniquity
Iniquity is not high on my list of things I wish to write about. However, in my journey through Luke, I found myself considering Judas for the first time. In my previous post about Judas, my thoughts were on the mask he wore. But this time, I found myself caught in the moment where Jesus asks Would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss? This is where the word iniquity comes to mind for me. I feel Jesus’ hurt at this moment. Or perhaps He was astonished by the gall of it. A kiss in Jewish culture represents loyalty. It is a covenant of friendship as when Aaron…
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The Danger of a Mask: The Judas Flaw
The reason nearly every horror villain wears a mask is that a mask can turn anyone into a monster. Not every mask is monstrous, of course, but the moment we begin to hide our true face, the moral slide has begun. In an American literature course I once taught, I asked the students to choose the one poem that really hit them during the class and write on it. Most of them chose We Wear the Mask by Paul Laurence Dunbar: We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes… They each wrote about the same thing; how every day they had…
Healing Through Art & Words
