More from Joseph Sittler and this "restlessness" in which humanity " is created to grasp more than we can grab, to probe for more than we can ever handle or manage.
This restlessness may make us want to throw in the towel - or to pull up our socks. You can play it either way. You can either be creatively restless, as before the unknowable, or you can simply collapse into futility. One of the goals of the Christian message is to join together the people of the way, the way of an eternally given restlessness, and to win from that restlessness the participation in God, which is all that our mortality can deliver.
I find that it can be the same type of experience that causes me to want to throw in the towel as it will be an experience that will cause me to "pull up my socks." In both cases I know that our God is with me and will be with me and will see me through whatever might be at hand. And yet, at one time I fizzle and at the other I stand up to be counted. More and more I think it is as I live within the reality of the vision of the Church in which we "join together" to experience what ever will come that I am able to resist simply "throwing in the towel." This restlessness then becomes a journey and something through which I am able to walk and not back down from what I think might happen. More and more I turn to the baptismal font - the simplicity of the image of water and the encouragement of those words of eternal love - and I find nourishment that is able to sustain me. Part of that nourishment comes from looking around the room and seeing the others who stand at the font...the years of faithfulness...the many trials that have been faced...the victories and the defeats. And yet, there we are made fresh from the water sprinkled or dabbed or simply place on our forehead - fresh for life even within our eternal restlessness.
Connection: No one can tell us how to face this restlessness. Each of us can only tell our stories to others. From there, we take bits and pieces and those other people around us and we begin our own movement through the restlessness that calls us beyond ourselves. Enjoy the journey.
Lord God, continue to pull us into your Reign that is beyond our imagination and yet within the realm of the imagination of the saints gathered as one body. In this day we count on your Spirit to turn us into a searching and holy people who are willing to face the day and step into the possibilities of life you have waiting for us. Amen.
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