There are two quotes colliding in me this morning. I wanted to share them with you.
The first is from my boy, Toby Ziegler, communications director to the President of the United States on the TV series, West Wing. He laments that he doesn't write as well as he did when younger, but adds, "If I didn't write, I couldn't serve him at all."
Toby continues to step into that which he used to champion but now falters in. He stays in the fight to serve his boss. He serves at the pleasure of the president.
Also, I'm reading a book of letters written by saints and other sinners like the two of us, Marc. As I read them it strikes me that they simply wrote. Most did so without ink pens and cute stationary purchased from their local Barnes & Noble... none yet built in 1731 to my knowledge. But in this same year Jean-Pierre de Caussade wrote the following to a nun about self-surrender to God. It halts me.
Our Lord has given me a summary...
of general principles to guide the conduct of your life...
Firstly, a sincere desire to love God entirely and unreservedly is basic.
Secondly, a firm resolve to belong only to God helps you to think only of Him.
Do you hear the flow? Loving God entirely leads to belonging to God, which leads to thinking only of Him. And then de Caussade says,
... in concentrating only of God, it may take you into a great emptiness of spirit and of understanding, which in turn may make you numb of all will and of feelings also... Value however this twofold void, for they make pride and self-love difficult to survive.
When I decided to follow Jesus (or He-in-me decided, or He became irresistible, or I could not not follow, or I was seized by the power of a great affection as Brennan Manning says) this is one of the many things that I did not know, but feared to be true: Small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. The gate is so small... if you try to wear only a sock, you can't fit. The path is so narrow... even a wedding band will prevent you.
No gods allowed. None.
And this is why we may value the void that comes from being wholly centered on God, it makes my god of pride and self-love difficult to survive.
More disclosure here at the end: I fear this is just a good sermon for me, not my real hope. When I close the laptop in a few seconds, will the above words I wrote become a familiar, self-righteous, wow-man-you-really-GET-it arrogance that is the wide road leading to destruction? This, I believe, is why He invites us to cry mercy. So I do. Will you join me?
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
On me.
