Can I Trust My Response?
Can I Trust My Response?
Sunday of the Second Week of Lent – March 8, 2020
Too often our life with God is segregated so that a life of worship, prayer, devotion, and love of God is taken as a different thing than a life of service, mission, action, and love of neighbor.
Every Christian community I know struggles to balance these two movements. Some give themselves to prayer and devotion, feeling that it is the better part. Others give themselves to action, wanting to see the fruit of their faith. Then a large group – perhaps the majority – stand in the middle, confused over the whole matter, and thus paralyzed, not doing a thing.
Of course, the answer is not “either/or” but rather “both/and.” An inward journey of prayer, meditation and openness leads to a love of God that transforms life. When we travel into the heart of God, we begin to see differently and think differently. Inner transformation happens in that seeing and thinking.
Transformation is not for our personal enjoyment, though. Transformed people transform the world. When we sink into God as the Core of life, we relate to others and the entire world differently. We no longer divide the world into friends and enemies, us and them. From the Center, we journey back outward in a different way, a way that brings healing and mercy into our world.
So both the inward journey and the outward journey are essential. We cannot choose one or the other. It may be, however, that if we have neglected one for the sake of the other, we will be encouraged to live into a more life-giving rhythm through Lent.
For over four decades, beginning in 1953, Elizabeth O’Connor was a part of the vast ministry of The Church of The Saviour in Washington, D.C. That congregation had a vibrant ministry of mission and social action in the inner city, rooted in prayer and contemplation. As well as any congregation I know, they held together the inward life and the outward life. This week I’ll lean into excerpts from her book, Journey Inward, Journey Outward.
Laurens van der Post in one of his papers reminds us of the legend of the white and black knights at King Arthur’s court, which illustrates what our meeting with another often is.
There were two brothers, the Black Knight and the White Knight, and they set off on a quest, each on his own, one going north and the other one south. After many years they met in a dark wood, and did not know each other. They immediately assumed that they were enemies until, when both were lying bleeding to death on the grass, they undid their helmets and recognized that they were brothers.
The question is, can the recognition come before the fatal blows are struck? The answer that comes to me is: only if my life is grounded in the God of us both. We do not even have to ask if another will prove himself trustworthy. The question for each of us is, “Am I trustworthy?” Is there within me a strength that lets me be unafraid? Can I allow myself to be present to another because I can trust my response and know that I am able for whatever comes? All of life puts the same question. Can I be present to it, or have I so little trust in my own inner resources that I am fearful of hurt, fearful to loss, guarding myself – not daring to lose my life, and therefore never finding it.
[Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.]
For Reflection:
o I want to be conscious today of the ways I meet people, of how I label and categorize others based on their nationality, religion, job, or gender.
o How can I meet each person today as a brother or a sister? God, help me with this intention for the day.
o Elizabeth O’Connor encourages us to trust the inner resources we have by virtue of God’s life within us. How do I hear her encouragement? Do I find this difficult or easy? Does this come naturally for me or does it seem counter to my nature? I consider this for a few moments.
Sunday of the Second Week of Lent – March 8, 2020
Too often our life with God is segregated so that a life of worship, prayer, devotion, and love of God is taken as a different thing than a life of service, mission, action, and love of neighbor.
Every Christian community I know struggles to balance these two movements. Some give themselves to prayer and devotion, feeling that it is the better part. Others give themselves to action, wanting to see the fruit of their faith. Then a large group – perhaps the majority – stand in the middle, confused over the whole matter, and thus paralyzed, not doing a thing.
Of course, the answer is not “either/or” but rather “both/and.” An inward journey of prayer, meditation and openness leads to a love of God that transforms life. When we travel into the heart of God, we begin to see differently and think differently. Inner transformation happens in that seeing and thinking.
Transformation is not for our personal enjoyment, though. Transformed people transform the world. When we sink into God as the Core of life, we relate to others and the entire world differently. We no longer divide the world into friends and enemies, us and them. From the Center, we journey back outward in a different way, a way that brings healing and mercy into our world.
So both the inward journey and the outward journey are essential. We cannot choose one or the other. It may be, however, that if we have neglected one for the sake of the other, we will be encouraged to live into a more life-giving rhythm through Lent.
For over four decades, beginning in 1953, Elizabeth O’Connor was a part of the vast ministry of The Church of The Saviour in Washington, D.C. That congregation had a vibrant ministry of mission and social action in the inner city, rooted in prayer and contemplation. As well as any congregation I know, they held together the inward life and the outward life. This week I’ll lean into excerpts from her book, Journey Inward, Journey Outward.
Laurens van der Post in one of his papers reminds us of the legend of the white and black knights at King Arthur’s court, which illustrates what our meeting with another often is.
There were two brothers, the Black Knight and the White Knight, and they set off on a quest, each on his own, one going north and the other one south. After many years they met in a dark wood, and did not know each other. They immediately assumed that they were enemies until, when both were lying bleeding to death on the grass, they undid their helmets and recognized that they were brothers.
The question is, can the recognition come before the fatal blows are struck? The answer that comes to me is: only if my life is grounded in the God of us both. We do not even have to ask if another will prove himself trustworthy. The question for each of us is, “Am I trustworthy?” Is there within me a strength that lets me be unafraid? Can I allow myself to be present to another because I can trust my response and know that I am able for whatever comes? All of life puts the same question. Can I be present to it, or have I so little trust in my own inner resources that I am fearful of hurt, fearful to loss, guarding myself – not daring to lose my life, and therefore never finding it.
[Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1968.]
For Reflection:
o I want to be conscious today of the ways I meet people, of how I label and categorize others based on their nationality, religion, job, or gender.
o How can I meet each person today as a brother or a sister? God, help me with this intention for the day.
o Elizabeth O’Connor encourages us to trust the inner resources we have by virtue of God’s life within us. How do I hear her encouragement? Do I find this difficult or easy? Does this come naturally for me or does it seem counter to my nature? I consider this for a few moments.
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