Day 13
I
am wanting to recount some of the words that have shaped me/us the last several
years. I believe that I had caught
the scent of something (or it had caught me) a number of years back when I
first began to read Eugene Peterson, then later with James Houston, Esther de
Waal, Kathleen Norris, among others.
These are older (though new to me) ideas for spiritual formation that I
have found in many writers now, but are words that were absent in the frantic,
maniacal discipleship that I experienced and forced upon others…an impatient
and forceful (even violent) brand of ministry.
The word…..Particular
I remember reading in the Chronicles of
Narnia, when Lucy was asking curious questions about what would happen to
another person, Aslan chided her and said that each person had her own story,
and that she must only be concerned with her own. I saw this theme repeated in the Gospel of John, when Peter,
confronted with a foretelling of his own death, asks what would happen to the
Apostle John. Jesus would only
speak to his (Peter’s) own future.
This is the idea that James Houston conveyed in being
“particularized”. Like the prayer
in the Book of Common Prayer, we fellowship in his sufferings, but also in his
resurrection. If this is the true cycle of a life with
Jesus, then we all taste both sides, but in unique and particular ways. I will have particular sufferings, and
particular joys. It does not mean
that we cannot have similar experience, but what Jesus is doing in my
joys/sorrows, he may not be doing
in yours. It is the knowledge of
particularization that allows me to have a “fellow feeling” with you as you
pass through your own particular joys/sorrows. The hardest part of this is that I will have to pass through
certain dark places alone. There
are places, very holy places, that are only to be walked with Jesus- where
Jesus waits for me alone. When I
resist that loneliness, I am resisting his loving draw- his wooing. Because it is in being particularized
that I most learn that I am a child of God, and loved- a son, who is an
integral part of the life of the kingdom.
I’ve
often heard the phrase from the bible, “kicking against the goads.” This refers to the working animal that
is always trying to break out, resist any constraints. In me, this was the refusal to release
control, to be at rest, and then in the silence, face myself. I had constructed many ways, seemingly
holy and humble ways, to keep Jesus at arms length- a stoicism and hyper-sense
of responsibility that never allowed any penetration of my inner man, any
voices that could see me for who I was, or enough silence to allow me to listen
to God. (Inner landscape and
compensatory behavior) This
is the antidote to rivalry- because it allows me to get comfortable in my own
story and my own skin. (self aware
vs. self conscious.)