On to new things

June 21, 2011

I've learned a lot from keeping an online spiritual journal, but as Ecclesiastes tells us, there is a time for everything under the sun, and I feel it's time to let this project go. For a while now, I've been pondering wider questions that don't really fit into a blog format; also I feel that I need to put my efforts into my historical fiction blog. Ultimately, I believe that fiction can reach out to or teach people who might not read traditional religious material.
Anyway, thanks to all who read my musings. You can follow my blog, which deals with historical fiction and neglected classics, by clicking the button on the left.
Blessings!

Only for today, every day

Jennifer Fulwiler, over at Conversion Diary, has been meditating on the Lord’s Prayer word by word, with the help of several guest posts. It would be a great exercise to follow for a personal devotion.

Meanwhile, the Lord’s Prayer is something I’ve been saying almost daily as I try to read at least the shortened Daily Office from the Book of Common Prayer, and it set me to wondering why it is part of every liturgical service. I mean, yes, it’s the prayer Jesus gave us, but it’s more than that. Even though I’ve been saying it since I was young enough to memorize it, it’s only now that I’ve come to appreciate how it really is the perfect prayer to lead us through our Christian life, and even, I’d venture to say, for the lives of many non-Christians. The central requests are basic to the life of true contentment: let us have only enough for our needs, “our daily bread”; let things be as they ought in the world, “thy will be done”; let us forgive and be forgiven; let us not be tempted beyond our endurance.

For the believer, of course, we affirm the wonderful truth that God is our Father, that heaven and his will is our goal, not our selfish desires, and that victory is possible, “as it is in heaven.” And we say all these things each day in the liturgical tradition precisely because the prayer is for this day, not yesterday or tomorrow. Look at it: it’s in the present tense – “give us,” “be done,” “as it is,” “lead us not.” That is, God doesn’t ask us to plan for the impossible future. He asks us to work for his will day by day, and he promises to be at our side while we do it. What more do we need?

A riddle:

Connections again, a continuing theme of my life, it seems: how does a young French nun bridge the gap between a seventeenth century Jesuit and an eight-year-old boy from Mississippi?

Well, the nun, of course, is my friend Saint Thérèse. The Jesuit is Thomas à Kempis; the boy, a friend of my daughter, whom I’ll call Jack.

When I read the first two books of Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, there was one quote in particular I copied down and still keep propped up on my bookshelf:

Four Things which bring great peace:
My child, I will teach you now the way of peace and true liberty.
Seek, child, to do the will of others rather than your own.
Always choose to have less rather than more.
Always look for the last place and seek to be beneath all others.
Always wish and pray that the will of God be carried out in you.
Behold, such will enter into the realm of peace and rest.

Well, theoretically that’s true, yet the more we try to beat ourselves down, the more our will persists in coming to the fore, with jealousy, desires, feelings of superiority, all those things that make us put ourselves first. “Thy will be done” is not that easy, which is why Thomas a Kempis gives us practical instruction to work toward that state of being.

A recent discussion at a meeting of our chapter of the Order of the Daughters of the King got round to discussing this very topic of the ego. Jack’s mother shared that she’d discussed this with Jack, who had commented, “Well, it knows you’re trying to get rid of it, so it’s fighting back.” What could we say other than be blown away with his wisdom? Thomas à Kempis told us the how, but Jack was ready with the ‘why.’

And how does Saint Thérèse come into this? Well, despite by all accounts being an extremely intelligent young woman, she was wise enough to be open to the simplest and most profound methods of instruction, that of Christ speaking to the soul: “Jesus needs neither books nor Doctors of Divinity in order to instruct souls; He, the Doctor of Doctors, He teaches without noise of words.”

Now I’m academically minded (aka a nerd). I can’t help it – I like to exercise my brain and I love literature. Wisdom from a medieval thinker appeals to me; but Jack (and Thérèse) reminded me that that I should never believe that theologians have all the answers; after all, what I learned through serious study, he figured out for himself. The ego points to power; Kempis and Thérèse point to another “way” – of intellectual and bodily humility. Jack knows we’re in for a fight; but it’s also fun to climb trees and eat popsicles.

To Thomas, Thérèse, and Jack: Amen.