It’s been an interesting week. Always a bit of a surprise to discover something as an elaboration of yourself. It seems I don’t fully know every bit of what’s going on. It has been a good week, a challenging week in some regards and altogether indescribable – despite pinpointing something new, I’m not altogether entirely sure what exactly it is.
I have been consistently reading A Year with C. S. Lewis which I was somewhat delighted to find on the shelf a few days after my, ‘I’d like to take a class with him’ statement.
“For it is not so much of our time and so much of our attention that God demands; it is not even all our time and all our attention; it is ourselves. For each of us the Baptist’s words are true: “He must increase and I decrease.” He will be infinitely merciful to our repeated failures; I know no promise that he will accept a deliberate compromise. For He has, in the last resort, nothing to give us but Himself; and He can give that only insofar as our self-affirming will retires and makes room for Him in our souls. Le us make up our minds to it; there will be nothing “of our own” left over to live on, no “ordinary” life. I do not mean that each of us will necessarily be called to be a martyr or even an ascetic. That’s as may be. For some (nobody knows which) the Christian life will include much leisure, many occupations we naturally like. But these will be received from God’s hands. IN a perfect Christian they would be as much part of his “religion,” his “service,” as his hardest duties, and his feasts would be as Christian as his fats. What cannot be admitted – what must exist only as an undefeated but daily resisted enemy – is the idea of something that is “our own,” some area in which we are to be “out of school,” on which God has no claim.
For he claims all, because He is love and must bless. He cannot bless us unless He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all. There’s no bargaining with Him.”
-from “A Slip of the Tongue” (The Weight of Glory)
I have been thinking also about some lyrics,
“Pray for the bravery
To act upon the kindness of forgiveness
And the mystery of clarity sometimes
Mercy is grateful to go under all our failures
Thanks be to Christ for severity
That’s kissed us on our cheeks”-from We are a Beginning (Sarah Masen)
I am satisfied in who I am. There is room to move and change and grow. Living with God is not boring although sometimes it seems to take directions all of it’s own.
