Our Need for Mystery

A Russian priest, Father Anthony, told me, "To say to anyone, 'I love you' is tantamount to saying 'You shall live forever.'"

I am slowly beginning to learn something about immortality.

Our children are hungry for words like Father Anthony's. They have a passionate need for the dimension of transcendence, mysticism, way-outness. We're not offering it to them legitimately. The tendency of the churches to be relevant and more-secular-than-thou does not answer our need for the transcendent. As George Tyrrell wrote about a hundred years ago, "If [man's] craving for the mysterious, the wonderful, the supernatural, be not fed on true religion, it will feed itself on the garbage of any superstition that is offered to it."

Glimpses of Grace; June 12; p. 148

Joyous and Helpful Labor

Lord of my life, whose law I fain would keep, whose fellowship I fain would enjoy, and to whose service I would fain be loyal, I kneel before You as You send me forth to the work of another day.

     This day, O Lord --
     give me courtesy:
     give me meekness of bearing with decision of character:
     give me longsuffering:
     give me chastity:
     give me sincerity of speech:
     give me diligence in my allotted task.

     O You who in the fullness of time raised up our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to enlighten our hearts with the knowledge of Your love, Grant me the grace to be worthy of His name. Amen.

John Baillie; Devotional Classics; p.127

Living Mysteries

"To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist."  -- Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard; quoted in Glimpses of Grace; pp. 146-7

Literalism to Judgementalism...

If we take the Bible over-literally we may miss the truth of the poetry, the stories, the myths. Literalism can all too easily become judgementalism, and Jesus warned us not to judge, that we might not be judged.

How difficult it is! When I worry about those who castigate me for not agreeing with them, am I in my turn falling into judgementalism? it's hard not to. But not all the way, I hope. I don't want to wipe out those who disagree with me, consigning them to hell for all eternity. We are still God's children, together. At One. Even if I am angry, upset, confused, I must still see Christ and Christ's love in those whose opinions are very different from mine, or I won't find it in those whose view fits more comfortably with mine.

-- Madeleine L'Engle; Glimpses of Grace; p. 144; June 7

The World as an Object

Where man meets the world, not with the tools he has made but with the soul with which he was born; not like a hunter who seeks his prey but like a love to reciprocate love; where man and matter meet as equals before the mystery, both made, maintained and destined to pass away, it is not an object, a thing that is given to his sense, but a state of fellowship that embraces him and all things; not a particular fact but the startling situation that there are facts at all; being; the presence of a universe; the unfolding of time. The sense of the ineffable does not stand between man and mystery; rather than shutting him out of it, it brings him together with it.

Man is Not Alone; Abraham Joshua Heschel; p. 38

Michael Spencer quote from Boarshead Tavern

“… the powerful changes that happen in the life of a disciple never come from the disciple working hard at doing anything. They come from arriving at a place where Jesus is everything, and we are simply overwhelmed with the gift. Sometimes it seems as if God loves us too much. His love goes far beyond our ability to stop being moral, religious, obedient, and victorious, and we just collapse in his arms.  -- Michael Spencer
Quoted on May 4th by Bob Myers from The Boarshead Tavern blog.

Rock Bottom

It's a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It give us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand. It stops us from taking anything for granted.
Glimpses of Grace: April 17 P. 104