August 19, 2010

In anticipation of the August 28 observance in nine days of the feasts of
contemplatives Augustine of Hippo and Moses the Black (a.k.a. Abba Moses).
Anglican, Lutheran, Roman Catholic and still other Christian and Orthodox communions celebrate the feast of Augustine. Among his most celebrated books is the autobiographical Confessions.


To keep on keeping on keeping on doing the will of God

-- Jim Boushay

To do the will of God is to do anything that advances love and compassion into the universe.

Living out that one mighty powerful idea and practice can (and often does) take a lifetime of fits and starts. There is bumbling and stumbling awkwardly into deeper awareness of the opportunities for grace in the moment—in the now. This is whether here, there, or anywhere. We are spiritual creatures…and social creatures as well. We have specific human experiences, human emotions, human thoughts and feelings, most of which are characteristically tethered to the muck and jumble of daily existence.

To advance “divine” or transcendent love into the universe—however we try our human best to do that daily in our particularized and often-fragile experiences at home, in family, in community, at work—means some vital things. For one thing, it means we have to deal with the vicissitudes of conforming (or not) to our specific milieu. We are subject to the ups and downs of conforming or not conforming to less-than-ideal realities of family and neighborhood—daily.

It means knowing intuitively (based on our own unique experiences) that one person’s set of circumstances differs quite radically from another’s set of circumstances. (To hold to an ersatz sense of “compulsory oneness” is perhaps to engage a pathological compulsion.) It means that one person’s way of advancing love into the universe looks rather different from another’s efforts at trying to do the same. To advance love and compassion into the universe means acceptance (not resignation) and forgiveness. The mighty powerful historical Jesus showed that the final form of love is forgiveness. In
the century just past and into today, there have been hundreds and hundreds (nay, thousands and thousands, more!) of earnest and ardent practitioners of the self sacrifice required to forgive others and ourselves, to forgive ourselves and others.

Humans are inherently made for love because God is love and mercy, say the scriptures of the world's religions, and God is originator (creator) of all things.

Judgment of one person’s efforts is, ideally, left in the just hands of a loving and compassionate and merciful God. The human action of withholding judgment of another still does not relieve responsible, thinking, feeling human beings of the critical capacities to think things through. And hardly are we relieved of our obligations to pray. We are asked, as well, to be still. At the same time we hear and respond to calls to read more, to consult more, to listen more, to speak less, to ask questions, and then to listen still more to the answers—both coherent and “incoherent”—that come from earnest effort. And ultimately then, after all is done and said, we are to wait.

There is a telling story of the famous desert father Abba Moses (330-405 CE): He was urged to sit in a council to decide the punishment of an errant monastic brother but refused. When finally he relented and came to the meeting, he was carrying a water jug with a hole leaking water. Others of the council asked him what he was doing with a leaking jug. The history of the desert monks reports what Abba Moses said: "My sins run out behind me, and I do not see them, and today I am coming to judge the errors of another." With the new understanding of their own frailties and weaknesses, the
monastic confreres forgave the errant monk.

Indeed, we bedeviled humans are largely consigned to bumble and stumble our awkward way into deeper awareness of the opportunities for existential grace in the beguiling moment. Tellingly, we are to do that hard work, yes, in an ongoingly circus-like culture through which we are speeding. There are few easy “answers” in a clearly less than ideal world.

“Shelter me safe in that haven of rest,” sings the Fehr Family group of evangelical and gospel musicians from Canada. Certainly our hearts are restless—say Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) and Abba Moses and many others through the ages—until our hearts rest in God alone.

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