Things are not where I'd like them to be right now on many fronts. It's on thing when circumstances or situations aren't where we'd like them to be, it's another when people, individuals with their own free will who make their own choices, are involved.
Where people are, there is often pain, especially when the heart is involved. My reasoning brain understands that love means sacrifice but when it comes to pain in the heart I am woefully weak. Does that mean I am not truly giving of it or does that mean I don't give of it in a healthy manner? In other words, do I give with expectations and attachments?
If you've been here for a while you may have encountered me mentioning The Roots of Christian Mysticism by Oliver Clement. Aside from the Bible and, perhaps, the Dao De Jing, no other book has been read as much by me. It changed my Christianity and has pushed me more toward the 'eastern' Christianity, the very same one toward which Hank Hanegraaf was drawn, found in Eastern Orthodoxy.
My goal for 2020 is to work the Psalms. Not all of them, just certain points, or even entire Psalms, of focus. Inspired by Patrick Henry Reardon through his book, Christ In The Psalms, my eyes were opened as to how Christ unlocks the mystery of the Psalms. Though they tackle all of what it means to be human, these are the human cries understood as of those of the Incarnate Christ in His humanity. Once this sunk on in it was as if the scale fell off my eyes.
As a declared Christian since 1996, it has been a challenged starting over, if you will, I have 20 years of knowledge, both schooling and self-study, and it has created this edifice that is often difficult to penetrate as my brain tends to go toward the the history, the linguistics, the language, the meaning and all the other 'technical' aspects of Scripture. I also throw up roadblocks by what I see as a lot of 'feel good' religion, those daily greatest hits, that show up in your inbox.
But I am choosing to work on surrender, to allow the scars and the wounds and the protective hedges to come down and allow the Spirit to do the deep work. I say all of that as on this day, the last of 2019, because this passage from Augustine in Clement's invaluable work continues to resonate and was one in which I will find myself swimming. It is worth quoting in full to get the rhythm and the feel for those last few sentences.
"I sought the substance [of God] in myself, as if it were similar to what I am; and I did not find it. I sense then that God is well beyond my soul. To touch him then, 'I pondered on these things and I stretched out my soul above itself'. How in fact could my soul reach what it needs to look for beyond itself if it did not stretch out above itself ? If my soul were to remain within itself it would not see anything but itself and, within itself, it would not see its God...
'I stretched out my soul beyond myself' and only my God remains for me to grasp. It is there, in fact, above my soul, that the dwelling of my God is. That is where he dwells, from there he sees me, from there he created me . . . from there he raises me up and calls me, from there he guides me and steers me into harbour. He who dwells in the highest heavens in an invisible abode possesses also a tabernacle on earth. His tabernacle is his Church still on its journey. It is there he must be sought because in the tabernacle is found the way that leads to his abode. Actually when I stretched out my soul above myself to reach my God, why did I do it?
'Because I will enter into the place of the tabernacle', the marvellous tabernacle, even to the house of God...The tabernacle of God on earth is made up of faithful people...The prophet [David] entered the tabernacle and from there arrived at the house of God. While he was marvelling at the saints, who are as it were different parts of this tabernacle, he was led to the house of God, carried away by a certain delight, a kind of secret charm, as though from the house of God were coming the bewitching sounds of a musical instrument. He walked in the tabernacle and hearing this music within, whose sweetness drew him on, he set himself to follow what he heard...and he arrived at the house of God...How did you come to the secret of that abode?
The reply: amidst songs of gladness and praise, amidst the joyful harmonies of the holiday-makers...in the house of God it is always a holiday...it is celebrated by the choirs of angels, and the face of God, seen unveiled, gives rise to a joy beyond description. There is no beginning to that day of festival, nor any end. Of this eternal festivity some ineffable sound is heard in the ears of the heart, provided that no human noise is mixed with it. The harmony of that festival enchants the ear of anyone who is walking in this tabernacle and contemplating the marvels that God has worked for the redemption of the faithful. It leads the hart to the waterbrooks.
But we see God from a distance. Our body that is doomed to corruption weighs our soul down and our spirit is troubled by many thoughts. Sometimes, spurred on by the longing that scatters the vain images that surround us, we succeed in hearing those divine sounds...However, since we are weighed down by our heaviness we soon fall back into our habitual ways. We let ourselves be dragged back to our usual way of living. And just as when we drew near to God we found joy, so when we fall back to earth we have reason to groan.
'Why art thou so heavy, 0 my soul: and why art thou so disquieted within me?' We have just tasted a secret sweetness, we have just been able with the fine point of the spirit to glimpse, very briefly, it is true, and in a flash only, the life that does not change. Why then are you still distressed? Why this sadness? You do not doubt your God. You are not at a loss for an answer to those who ask you, 'Where is your God?' Already I have had a foretaste of the immutable. Why are you still distressed? Hope in God.
And the soul replies in secret: 'Why am I in distress, unless it is because I am not yet in that abode where this sweetness into whose bosom I was fleetingly transported is for ever enjoyed? Can I perhaps from now on drink from this fountain without fear?...Am I even now secure against all my inordinate desires? Are they tamed and vanquished? Is not the devil, my enemy, on the watch for me? And you would have me untroubled while I am still exiled from God's house!'
Then...the reply comes: 'Hope in God. While awaiting heaven find your God here below in hope... Why hope? Because I shall witness to him. What witness will you give? That he is my God, the health of my countenance. My health cannot come to me from myself. I will proclaim it, I will bear witness to it: My God is the health of my countenance...' Augustine of Hippo, Commentary on Psalm 41 [42] (PL 3 6,464-7)
Or, to quote Psalm 42 from the KJV:
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance." (v. 5)
After the plea for help, the remedy:
"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." (v. 11)
As Sister Joseph, one of the moms of the church in which I was baptized always reminded me and whose Trinidadian accented voice proclaims:
'Keep pressing!'
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