On Reading Old Journals
This morning after praying the Office and reading a selection from Merton's No Man is an Island I found myself reading back over a number of my spiritual journal entries from the past two or so years. It was an interesting and instructive experience, both in a negative and positive way.
In the negative sense, one thing that caught me up short was how the besetting sins and weaknesses that I found to be such a vexation several years ago still dog me today. I found myself wondering if I had progressed at all in the process of sanctification. Why the same stuff over and over? I would like to be able to be done with something and move on to other issues with which I wrestle from time to time. Can I be done with fear that I may go on and deal with, say, sloth or avarice? It would seem not from what I read this morning. My own pen judges me.
In response, however, several things occur to me. First, that I am an impatient creature. Sanctification is a process for the long haul. Two, or even ten, years are not adequate to gauge the purificating work of the Holy Spirit. (And as I continue to inch toward the Tiber, I wonder if even the span of a lifetime is a broad enough perspective. Purgatory? God be praised! What grace! But that, obviously, is another post.)
Secondly, my besetting sin is just that, a besetting sin. It is not something I will get over. It will dog me until God's work is finished. It is the thorn in the flesh. It is my addiction. To suggest final triumph prior to Glory is to be beguiled by my own sense of accomplishment and ability. It is to be like the alcoholic who thinks he doesn't need to practice the 12 steps anymore.
But the place of my besetting sin is also the place where the grace of God in Christ Jesus is manifested with the greatest power. It is the place where the earthen vessel is chipped, thus revealing the surpassing weight of Glory.
Now to the positive experience:
I was actually quite taken and moved by the insights and graces God has shared with me in the last few years as they were recorded in the journal. There was some wonderful stuff in there, thoughts and reflections of beauty and grace that had been long forgotten. But the greater grace was reading this thoughts as though I had first taken a deep draught of Lethe. I received them without a sense of ownership or pride. These reflections were not mine, they were a gift from God and, how do I say this?, another me, one who is undoubtably a part of me and has made me who I am (for good and ill!), but also speaks to me from outside. Thus the insights are received as sheer grace, free from any demands that my proprietary ego might make.
In the negative sense, one thing that caught me up short was how the besetting sins and weaknesses that I found to be such a vexation several years ago still dog me today. I found myself wondering if I had progressed at all in the process of sanctification. Why the same stuff over and over? I would like to be able to be done with something and move on to other issues with which I wrestle from time to time. Can I be done with fear that I may go on and deal with, say, sloth or avarice? It would seem not from what I read this morning. My own pen judges me.
In response, however, several things occur to me. First, that I am an impatient creature. Sanctification is a process for the long haul. Two, or even ten, years are not adequate to gauge the purificating work of the Holy Spirit. (And as I continue to inch toward the Tiber, I wonder if even the span of a lifetime is a broad enough perspective. Purgatory? God be praised! What grace! But that, obviously, is another post.)
Secondly, my besetting sin is just that, a besetting sin. It is not something I will get over. It will dog me until God's work is finished. It is the thorn in the flesh. It is my addiction. To suggest final triumph prior to Glory is to be beguiled by my own sense of accomplishment and ability. It is to be like the alcoholic who thinks he doesn't need to practice the 12 steps anymore.
But the place of my besetting sin is also the place where the grace of God in Christ Jesus is manifested with the greatest power. It is the place where the earthen vessel is chipped, thus revealing the surpassing weight of Glory.
Now to the positive experience:
I was actually quite taken and moved by the insights and graces God has shared with me in the last few years as they were recorded in the journal. There was some wonderful stuff in there, thoughts and reflections of beauty and grace that had been long forgotten. But the greater grace was reading this thoughts as though I had first taken a deep draught of Lethe. I received them without a sense of ownership or pride. These reflections were not mine, they were a gift from God and, how do I say this?, another me, one who is undoubtably a part of me and has made me who I am (for good and ill!), but also speaks to me from outside. Thus the insights are received as sheer grace, free from any demands that my proprietary ego might make.
Labels: journaling
posted by peregrinator at 10:32 AM
1 Comments:
Well written article.
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