Isn't There a Pill for That?

Thursday 3/13/2014 3:15 AM

I live in a culture that despises suffering.  We do everything we can to avoid it.  Any physical or emotional suffering is avoided by taking some sort of medication.  Headache?  Take a Tylenol.  Feeling depressed?  Take a Zoloft.  Being teased because of your lack of hair?  Take Rogaine.  Feeling anxious?  Take a Xanax.  And so it goes.  Any kind of thing that ails you, there is a pill for that.

This kind of mentality leads to an expectation of instant gratification and a lack of perseverance when dealing with problems or difficult situations.  Its effects can be seen in a variety of ways.  Students refuse to spend more that a minute or two trying to solve a problem on a homework assignment without looking to an answer key or the internet for a solution.  Married couples experiencing difficulties in their relationship get a divorce rather than working to find common ground.  Countries try to resolve differences with war and terror rather than sitting down to work out those differences through a long-negotiated peace.  Political adversaries attack each other and call each other stupid idiots rather that sitting down respectfully with each other to broker a compromise.

My reading today includes that of Theophan the Recluse who makes a similar observation about our spiritual growth.  He writes, “It must be realized that the true sign of spiritual endeavor and the price of success in it is suffering.  One who proceeds without suffering will bear no fruit.  Pain of the heart and physical striving bring to light the gift of the Holy Spirit, bestowed in holy baptism upon every believer, buried in passions through our negligence in fulfilling the commandments, and brought once more to life by repentance, through the ineffable mercy of God.. …Every struggle in the soul’s training, whether physical or mental, that is not accompanied by suffering, that does not require the utmost effort, will bear no fruit. … Many people have worked and continue to work without pain, but because of its absence they are strangers to purity and out of communion with the Holy Spirit, because they have turned aside from the severity of suffering.  Those who work feebly and carelessly may go through the movement of making great efforts, but they harvest no fruit, because they undergo no suffering.”

I am guilty of avoiding the difficulties of my spiritual life.  Rather than spending the time and energy to wrestle with God when faced with circumstances that challenge my faith I walk away from the situation and say that God must not care because he would never let bad things happen to good people.  I rush to judgment without giving consideration to any other point of view.  I am a spoiled brat, wanting everything to go my way without any effort on my part.  I want intimacy with God without putting in the work required.  Isn’t there a pill for that?

A Life of Service

Monday 3/10/2014 4:26 AM

Last Wednesday my mother fell and broke her hip.  She had hip replacement surgery on Thursday and is now recuperating and undergoing physical therapy.  She spent her entire life serving other people.  My dad had emphysema and she lovingly cared for him throughout his life, especially as his health deteriorated and he was no longer able to care for himself.  My younger sister, Ruth, has cerebral palsy and my mother cared for her needs as she was growing up, including numerous surgeries on her legs and eyes.  Her life was always lived unselfishly, in deference to others, and she is having a difficult time dealing with being on the receiving end of care rather than on the giving end.

My brother, Rod, has walked into her room and heard her praying aloud, asking God why this had to happen.  The nurses in the hospital have told him that they hear her talking to Jesus as if he were in the room.  They also said that she is a model patient, doing everything they ask her to do without complaining.  She has taken a personal interest in her caretakers asking them about their families and their lives away from their work.  It seems to me like my mother is a living example of the opening prayer of my devotional material this week.  “Almighty God, by the power of your Holy Spirit open our eyes, ears, hearts, and very lives to your presence so that today we may worship and serve you in faithfulness, be blessing and healing reminders of your love to all whose lives we touch.”  She is definitely aware of God’s presence in her life and she is blessing the lives of those she touches in spite of the painful circumstances she is experiencing.

Yesterday she told Rod that she prays that God will allow her to die soon so that she can see my dad, my stepfather, Herm, her brothers and sisters and her mom.  It seems as if she sees her work on this earth as being completed and she is longing to be relieved of her duties here.

I thought about my mom as I read my assigned psalm this morning.  Psalm 25:16-17 could be my mother’s prayer, “Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.  Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish.”  I have mixed feelings about this but, this morning, I am praying this prayer on behalf of my mom.

The Opposite of Love - Hate or Apathy?

Saturday 3/8/2014 7:22 AM

I once read that the opposite of love is not hate, but apathy.  I’m not sure of the veracity of that statement but it does seem to have at least some ring of truth to it.  Someone who exhibits anger or hatred is at least experiencing some sort of feeling about the person with whom, or the circumstances with which, they are dealing.  A person who is apathetic has gone past feeling and is simply numb toward the person or the circumstance.

Today I read an excerpt from The Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann.  He writes, “It is the crucifixion of Jesus that is the decisive criticism of the royal consciousness. … The criticism consists not in standing over against but in standing with; the ultimate criticism is not one of triumphant indignation but one of the passion and compassion that completely and irresistibly undermine the world of competence and competition.  The contrast is stark and total: this passionate man set in the midst of numbed Jerusalem.  And only the passion can finally penetrate the numbness.”

Today there are many who claim to be atheists or agnostics.  They believe that either God doesn’t exist at all or, if he does, he is unknowable and/or impotent.  In a sense they are apathetic or numb toward God.  Too often we in the Christian community want to oppose atheists and agnostics, claiming they are ruining society because of their desire to remove God from the public forum.  God’s desire is that we stand with them and express the passion of God’s love in our dealings with them.  God’s love is the only thing that can penetrate their numbness toward God.  It is our job to love.  It is God’s job to penetrate hearts and to judge.

Roots

Wednesday 3/5/2014 4:48 AM

Well, my idea of giving up social media and Scrabble for Lent so that I have more time to exercise and have devotions has worked for the first morning.  Over the course of the past few months I have slowly drifted away from my regular morning routine.  It is time to get grounded again.

My reading today includes an excerpt from The New Man for Our Time, by Elton Trueblood.  He writes, “We, indeed, still have a little piety; we say a few hasty prayers; we sing meaningfully a few hymns; we read snatches from the Bible.  But all of this is far removed from the massive dose that we sorely need if we are to be men and women who can perform a healing service in our generation.  The seat of our disease, says Helmut Thielicke, ‘is not in the branches of our nerves at all but rather in our roots which are stunted and starved.  … To work without praying and without listening means only to grow and spread oneself upward, without striking roots and without an equivalent in the earth.’  Trees can grow well in rocky soil, as I can attest by looking out the window of my mountain writing cabin, but they do this only by finding crevices in the rocks where the roots are able to penetrate deeply.”

Of late I have definitely been in the “say a few hasty prayers, sing a few hymns and read snatches of the Bible” camp of Christianity.  I feel as if my life has been stunted as a result.  I’m not sure why, but I have a sense of foreboding lately, as if something of great consequence is going to happen in my life.  I think it is time to send down some roots into the love of God.