My morning meditations lately included reading some of C.S. Lewis talks -- his words are often thought-provoking. I read one recently titled “A Slip of the Tongue.” The title doesn’t seem to be on target with the focus, which generally is: “I pray to do God’s will, but what if He asks me to do something hard?” I’ll just print some of Lewis’ words here, so you can think on it as I did.
I pray my prayers … but while I do these things, there is, so to speak, a voice inside me that urges caution. I come into the presence of God with a great fear lest anything should happen to me within that presence which will prove too intolerably inconvenient when I have to come out again into my “ordinary” life. For all I know I shall be feeling quite different after breakfast; I don’t want anything to happen to me at the altar which will run up too big a bill to pay then.
The following story was told as true. An Irish woman who had just been at confession met on the steps of the chapel the other woman who was her greatest enemy in the village. The other woman let fly a torrent of abuse. “Isn’t it a shame for ye,” replied Biddy, “to be talking to me like that, ye coward, and me in a state of Grace the way I can’t answer ye? But you wait. I won’t be in a state of Grace long.”
This is my endlessly recurrent temptation: to go down to that Sea (I think St. John of the Cross called God a sea) and there neither dive nor swim nor float, but only dabble and splash, careful not to get out of my depth and holding on to the lifeline which connects me with my things temporal. Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted, like honest but reluctant taxpayers.
We can become scrupulous or fanatical … that is the truth. The lie consists in the suggestion that our best protection is a prudent regard for the safety of our pocket, our habitual indulgences, and our ambitions. But that is quite false. Our real protection is to be sought elsewhere: in common Christian usage, in moral theology, in steady rational thinking, in the advice of good friends and good books, (or) in a skilled spiritual director. Swimming lessons are better than a lifeline to the shore.
What must exist only as an undefeated but daily resisted enemy – is the idea of something that is “our own.” In love, He claims all. Thomas More said, “If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead.” We shall have missed the end for which we are formed, and rejected the only thing that satisfies. Does it matter to a man dying in a desert by which choice of route he missed the only well? On this subject Heaven and Hell speak with one voice. The tempter tells me, “Take care. Think how much this good resolve, the acceptance of this Grace, is going to cost.” But Our Lord equally tells us to count the cost. What matters, what Heaven desires and Hell fears, is precisely that further step, out of our depth, out of our own control.
Failures will be forgiven.
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Blog-hopping a while back, I came across your site at Maryellen's 'Grandma's Musings' site which I found by way of Micki's 'Holy Cards for your Inspiration' site - one of my favorites. Mine was a rambling path that day. I've come across many many interesting sites that way. At that time you had just posted about the death of a friend. It was a time to join you in prayer and postpone my introduction and any chatter.
ReplyDeleteAspiring is my online name, short for aspiring f.o.o.L. which is short for aspiring friend of our Lord. As my profile reveals, I someday hope to be a real f.o.o.L. :). My blog has the same name but I deactivated it for a time at the end of May.
I like your July 1 post, as I do many others you've written. The expression, "Ok I get it Lord," has hit me an untold number of times just that way in both funny and not-so-funny circumstances. I have uttered those very words. I think I have shouted them on occasion as well.
What just stuns me about your posts I've read so far, is that in some of them I've seen my own thought and evolution of thought, and my own conclusions, and topics I have covered myself, online and off. You're also long-winded on the page like I tend to be :). Don't at all be offended by that. 'Seeing' and illustrating and explaining the intricasies and dynamics of faith is a gift, a 'talent.' Writing is one of my gifts, and I recognize yours as such.
As for this post. (I'll be brief.) The Irish true story is wonderful. Thomas More's quote will be a perfect addition to, oddly enough, a hometown homecoming piece I'm working on. And your likening God to a sea is interesting to me because I recently finished a tiny little allegory likening a child's behavior at the sea to a soul's behavior at the sea of forgiveness.
I'm pleased to meet you. God bless you now and always, I pray...
Well, Anxious, you seem to have me pegged. I confess that I sometimes look at what I've written and am dismayed at its length, and sometimes take deliberate efforts to shorten things. But most often I leave things just as I wrote, just as I've thought about them. These are MY meditations, and I write my thoughts here both to remember them myself, but also to offer them to anyone else who may follow my mind's path, and perhaps reach similar peace in the finding of some small smattering of truth.
ReplyDeleteI think I am an example, although perhaps a weak one, of Benedict's emphasis on Faith and Reasoning blending together. I am curious for the truth, but deeply theological treatises sometimes bore me, and fluffy happy faith snippets seem a waste of my time. I want to learn more, and with reason understand what it means, in total and to me. If others can benefit from my reasoning, I am pleased. (And I apologize for being verbose.)
If you write and reason as I do, I should be glad to read what you have to say. I'm glad you find joy in some of these words.
It seems we're online about the same time. Hello... I'll repeat, please don't take offense. 'Long-winded' is the least of the points I was trying to make. Its only significance was to say I recognize that the gift for 'seeing' and then explaining and illustrating the intricasies and dynamics of our faith is a gift - a gift of many words. I'm verbose, too, as you say, and I'm delighted when I find others who are, too, because of the answers or affirmations I know I'll find there. I agree, happy faith snippets are too light. Volumes can be written to explain the perfection of them. And the treatises are too heavy. In between are those who can navigate the words and the meanings to benefit self or others as the case may be. While I've gotten good feedback on my work, none of this is to say that I manage any of these ideals myself, like you do. I'm only saying my tendencies are the same.
ReplyDeletePerhaps I approached you casually with my expression 'long winded' and shouldn't have. The apology isn't yours to make. It's mine. I do apologize.
Your comment about the blending of faith and reason has great significance to me. Thanks for the reference to Benedict. I have looked at that, too, as a blending, of logic and feeling, and of art and science in a way, too.
As for being stunned by the things you write about, it happened again this morning for example. I just finished yesterday a special-purpose story about my overall life - one of the threads that wove everything together is a certain highway, literally and allegorically. And here today (Sat., 7/10), I read your post about highways.
Again, I am please to meet you. God bless you now and always, I pray...