Fools rush in:
"But isn’t that what the Christian life calls us to: a life of continual repentance? And don’t we believe that ours is a God who brings about transformation? Isn’t the Christian life one in which we regularly examine our hearts for ways we have fallen short of selflessly, sacrificially, and genuinely loving our neighbor, in which we name those things before God, and pray that we would be able to turn back toward Christ? Isn’t the Christian life one in which we are grateful, again and again, to receive forgiveness?"
So maybe this is why I need to come and participate. I need to be reminded of how I fall short in loving my neighbor, of a life of service to others. (Oh, do I fall all the time). I need to be reminded of this call and how it is not about my being comfortable but being continually challenged. I also need first, to be forgiven for what I have done, and what I have failed to do. To be redeemed from myself. Second, I need that sense of hope that redemption can lead to a change, to break my heart of stone and to live more fully in god's world, not my own.
I need a lot more thinking, discernment on all of this. More mountain walks may be in order.
Thank you for this post. In such a time of upheaval, personal and national, I am grateful for you putting your own thoughts here.
I am the fool rushing in. My first mistake will be responding to this ("Who am I?"). My second mistake will be responding to it without first considering my own sins (!).
My first response to the quote from the sermon is that is sucks all the joy out of the gospel, leaving us with a lifeless husk, or what Garrison Keillor called "Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility." But "Religion is responsibility, or it is nothing at all." And of course there are the works of humility. So what's wrong with "continual repentance"? What were the Desert Fathers up to, after all?
There was no gentleness about the conduct of their own lifestyle [i.e., of the Desert Fathers] but their approach to others was different. They believed always in the sincerity of the commitment of each one and therefore behaved to each other in ways that would help and encourage them in the life they had chosen. If there was failure or weakness in anyone, it was at once understood that this was not what that person really desired, and therefore the weak were not blamed but encouraged to start over again." The Desert Father: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, tr. Benedicta Ward (New York: Penguin 2003, p. xiii)
Or, as Abba Poeman puts it:
"A brother asked Poeman, 'What am I to do, for I become weak just by sitting in my cell?' He said, 'Despise no one, condemn no one, revile no one: and God will give you quietness, and you will sit at peace in your cell.' "
Now, of course, that seems centered solely on members of the community. What of evil, from outside the community?
When Macarius was living in Egypt, one day he came across a man who had brought a donkey to his cell and was stealing his possessions. As though he was a passer-by who did not live there, he went up to the thief and helped him to load the beast, and sent him peaceably on his way, saying to himself, 'We brought nothing into this world (I Tim. 6:7) but the Lord gave; He willed, so it is done: blessed be the Lord in all things.'
Could you go and do likewise? Is that not an action of continual repentance? Who has more joy? You? Or Macarius? Who is more grateful to receive forgiveness?
A brother asked Abba Poeman: "What does it mean to be angry with your brother without a cause ?" He said, "If your brother hurts you by his arrogance and you are angry with him because of this, that is getting angry without a cause. If he pulls out your right eye and cuts off your right hand and you get angry with him, that is getting angry without a cause. But if he cuts you off from God--then you have every right to be angry with him."
Priorities. Or maybe it's simpler and harder than that:
They told this story of a great hermit. If anyone came to ask advice from him, he used to say with great confidence, "Look, I am acting in the place of God and sitting in his judgment seat; what do you want me to do for you? If you say to me, 'Have mercy upon me,' God says to you, 'If you want me to have mercy on you, you must have mercy on your brothers and then I shall have mercy on you. If you want me to forgive you, you must forgive your neighbour.' Then is God the cause of your guilt? God forbid. It is in our control, whether we do or we do not want to be saved."
Joseph asked Poeman, 'Tell me how to become a monk.' He said, 'If you want to find rest in this life and the next, say at every moment, "Who am I?" and judge no one.'
And this, from one of my favorite mystics:
"After this, our Lord reminded me of the longing I had for him, and I saw that nothing kept me from him but sin, and I saw that this is so with all of us. And I thought that if sin had never existed, we should all have been pure and like himself, as God made us; and so I had often wondered before now in my folly why, in his great foreseeing wisdom, God had not prevented the beginning of sin; for then, I thought, all would have been well. I ought certainly to have abandoned these thoughts, but nevertheless I grieved and sorrowed over the question with no reason or judgment. But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that I needed to know, answered with this assurance: 'Sin is befitting, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.'
"With this bare word 'sin' our Lord brought to my mind the whole extent of all that is not good, adn the shameful scorn adn the utter humiliation that he bore for us in this life, and his dying, and all the pains and suffering of all his creatures, both in body and in spirit--for we are all to some extent brought to nothing and shall be brought to nothing as our master Jesus was, until we are finally purged: that is to say until our mortal flesh is brought completely to nothing, and all those of our inward feelings which are not truly good....
"But I did not see sin; for I believe it has no sort of substance nor portion of being, nor could it be recognized were it not for the suffering which it causes. And this suffering seems to me to be something transient, for it purges us and makes us know ourselves and pray for mercy; for the Passion of our Lord supports us against all this, and this is his blessed will. And because of the tender love which our good Lord feels for all who shall be saved, he supports us willingly and sweetly, meaning this: 'It is true that sin is the cause of all this suffering, but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.' These words were said very tenderly, with no suggestion that I or anyone who will be saved was being blamed. It would therefore be very strange to blame or wonder at God because of my sin, since he does not blame me for sinning.
"And thus our good Lord answered all the questions and doubts I could put forward, saying most comfortingly, 'I may make all things well. I can make all things well and I will make all things well and I shall make all things well; and you shall see for yourself that all manner of things shall be well.
"And I wondered greatly as this revelation, and considered our faith, wondering as follows: our faith is grounded in God's word, and it is part of our faith that we should believe that God's word will be kept in all things; and one point of our faith is that many shall be damned--like the angels who fell out of heaven from pride, who are now fiends, and men on earth who die outside the faith of Holy Church, that is, those who are heathens, and also any man who has received Christianity and lives an unChristian life and so dies excluded from the love of God. Holy Church teaches me to belive that all these shall be condemned everlastingly to hell. And given all this, I thought it impossible that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord revealed at this time. And I received no other answer in showing from our Lord God but this: 'What is impossible to you is not impossible to me. I shall keep my word in all thing and I shall make all things well.'
"...the more anxious we are to discover [God's] secret knowledge about this or anything else, the further we shall be from knowing it...."
From chapters 27, 29, 32, and 33, Reflections of Divine Love, Julian of Norwich.
"I learn by going where I have to go." It's not like I was going to answer that long passage above; or argue with it. And the older I get the more like Mrs. Who I get: more comfortable quoting others than saying something my own self. It’s good to bristle at something now and again.
First, I have never thought you a fool. I also agree that is this were the end of the process, then it would be a mere dried husk and devoid of much that is beautiful. The following thoughts are to continue the conversation you so graciously picked up.
ReplyDeleteI come to all of this with my own history, biases, misunderstandings and lack of knowledge. Both a strength and a serious weakness is that I came back to a belief in god and eventually the church through AA. With that said, here is a quote that to lead into my own thoughts " Service, gladly
rendered, obligations squarely met, troubles well accepted or solved with God’s help, the knowledge that at home or in the world outside we are partners in a common effort, the well-understood fact that in God’s sight all human beings are important, the proof that love freely given surely
brings a full return, the certainty that we are no longer isolated and alone in self-constructed prisons, the surety that we need no longer be square pegs in round holes but can fit and belong in God’s scheme of things—these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living
for which no amount of pomp and circumstance, no heap of material possessions, could possibly be substitutes. True ambition is not what we thought it was. True ambition is the deep desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God."
(Step 12 of the Twelve and Twelve). The first words of the this chapter are "The joy of living.." The outcome of such practice is the joy of living. For example, continual repentance is not about being shamed. It's about facing your acts, receiving forgiveness and grace, and walking forth freed of that shame. I don't see a god that wants us wallowing in never ending repentance and shame. Instead I see in our Christian faith a god that wants to free us, to free us not in the sweet bye and bye of some hereafter, but now from the graves we have dug ourselves through our excessive desires, selfishness and neediness. The Christian service is not (well, Ash Wednesday) isn't for suffering, but is a celebration. God has given us this life, and the world for us to live in. My own humanness is to make it small. Joy is not made to be a crumb*, and we can make if very small. This is the lord of the dance, the creator, the maker of joyful sound. God's world is more rich and full than I can imagine. To engage in faithfull practice allows me to move beyond seeing relationships as merely transactional and to have true love and engagement with others. To see the world not as something to be exploited for our own gain, but as a gift and us as stewards. To see our physicality as a joyous gift, the sex act not as mere pleasure or for exploitation, but as an expression of love and caring for another. To take joy in relationships with family and friends, joy in art and nature, in the simple acts of a predawn row, the curl of the shaving as the plane moves over the wood, the rush of running water. These are god given gifts and joys.
So I don't see this as a dry husk, but the watering of the seed from which grows our lives of meaning and purpose.
I have rambled too long as usual. I have some more thoughts on why I am in this place, but they can wait. Let me end by saying you shouldn't hesitate to use your own voice. It's your blog, if someone doesn't like it they can go start their own!
*Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
You don't have to think me a fool, I'm far ahead on that. Arrogance would be to think I'm a fool for Christ. I consider my posture humility and honesty.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the rest of that. Much to meditate on there. My reaction is often to simplify what I first read, even as my method is to complicate (I learned it from the parables! That's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it!). First reactions are often insightful but impractical, and I try to invite dialogue. Too often, I feel like Socrates, defeating dialogue in the name of dialogue.
More fool me, eh? But at least I get the opportunity for other voices, ones I don't find on the internet otherwise.