Today we continue with Richard Rohr commenting on how we are able to live with a certain degree of anxiety and holding a very real amount of tension - that is...with faith.
We have to be trained how to do this. the only two things that are strong enough to accomplish this training are suffering and prayer. These two golden paths lead to a different shape of meaning, a different sized universe, a different set of securities and goals, and always a different Center. Only suffering and prayer are strong enough to decentralize both the ego and the superego. The practice of prayer we can choose to do ourselves; the suffering is done to us. But we have to be ready to learn from it when it happens and not waste time looking for someone to blame for our unnecessary suffering. That takes some good and strong teaching too. As I love to say on the road, "It is the things that you cannot do anything about and the things that you cannot do anything with that do something with you."
This is no call into a life of self-imposed suffering. Rather, as we take part in this adventure of faith that leads us into and through the anxiety and tension that is a part of stepping out into that which do not yet know or control, we will face stuff we do not readily want to face...and we will be invited to go through it all. To be engaged like that...again and again...takes a life of prayer. In a life of prayer, we learn to face what is unknown and frightening and we continue to remind ourselves of whose we are no matter what turns up to frighten or discourage us. There is no magic here. This will be a steadfast walk...a journey we enter even though there is no evidence that we will be able to control what happens or will be able to know how the other side looks. We are invited to move and fear not. Yes, that will involve facing changes we never may have anticipated. And yet, in the process of having something done to us along the way, we will be the beloved of God and that will be our rock and our place of rest.
Connection: We are often invited to move against the tide we have come to anticipate and expect. This new movement will bring new experiences and be the beginning of new life. Think of it...that all begins today.
You, O God, have already gone before us into that which is unknown and that which is able to threaten us. And yet, you continue to bid us to come and follow. Your place before us is the source of our hope and it becomes the power for life that will see us through all that we must face as we continue to come to life in you. Amen.
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