Hobbit-Sense at OneFreeGarden.com

I’ve been reading a truly awesome book by Fr. Lorenzo Scupoli, The Spiritual Combat. If you’ve never heard of it, not to worry. St. Francis de Sales carried a copy around in his back pocket during the seventeenth century, so it hasn’t been on the New York Times best seller list for awhile. Still, alongside The Imitation of Christ, it’s considered the greatest post-mideival work of the Latin ascetic tradition.

I’ll let you skim through Fr. Scupoli’s preliminaries before I start sharing my commentary on the book; luckily, you can find them online for free, along with the rest of his treatise. Of course, I don’t guarantee the site I’ve linked to, just the actual text of The Spiritual Combat.

Once you get through the preliminaries, you’ll have a rough overview of Fr. Scupoli’s fourfold path to victory in spiritual warfare: distrust of self, confidence in God, proper use of the faculties of body and mind, and the duty of prayer. Today, I’ll begin my meditations on the first of these: distrust of self.

Here is the relevant passage for our discussion:

Distrust of self is so absolutely requisite in the spiritual combat, that without this virtue we cannot expect to defeat even our weakest passions, much less gain a complete victory. This important truth should be deeply imbedded in our hearts; for, although in ourselves we are nothing, we are too apt to overestimate our own abilities and to conclude falsely that we are of some importance. This vice springs from the corruption of our nature. But the more natural a thing is, the more difficult it is to be discovered.

But God, to Whom nothing is secret, looks upon this with horror, because it is His Will that we should be convinced we possess only that virtue and grace which comes from Him alone, and that without Him we are incapable of one meritorious thought. This distrust of our own strength is a gift from Heaven, bestowed by God on those He loves. It is granted sometimes through His holy inspiration, sometimes through severe afflictions, or almost insurmountable temptations and other ways which are unknown to us. Yet He expects that we will do everything within our power to obtain it. And we certainly will obtain it if, with the grace of God, we seriously employ the following four means.

First. We must mediate upon our own weakness. Consider the fact that, being nothing in ourselves, we cannot, without Divine assistance, accomplish the smallest good or advance the smallest step towards Heaven.

I would like to focus on our “being nothing in ourselves.” What does this mean?

We are created from nothing, and so our essence, our self, is quite literally nothing. Our very being is, so to speak, on loan from God. And we mustn’t forget this. When we do forget this, or in other words, when we sin, we “reassert our nothingness” in the words of Fr. John Hardon’s wonderfully written Catechism. We reject God’s gift of existence.

Judeo-Christian mysticism has long emphasized this truth: everything we have is a gift, and we ourselves are images reflecting God’s glory, not the masters of a private universe entirely of our own making. Diverse authors talk of our nature as images of the Divine using terms such as “eye of faith,” the “spiritual man,” or the “unseen observer;” but all these terms mean the same thing: that which is aware of being aware.

Let’s investigate this concept with a brief exercise.

Drop everything you’re doing and find a place where you can rest in stillness. Sit back as an observer and watch your thoughts flutter by. Do not intervene; just watch. Everything will continue its maddening course for a brief while even in your absence, but soon things will begin to calm and only the noises of your immediate environment remain. Everything you are aware of in this moment, these noises, the occasional concern that arises in your mind, your personality, your memories, your beliefs, absolutely everything you typically identify with your deepest self, will be seen as something external. All that remains, like the surface of a quiet pond, is the image of God.

Fundamentally, every man is a mirror which reflects the dazzling light of the God through whom we live, move, and have our being. We cannot point to any one thing in ourselves we did not first receive from a friend, or a kind word, or a beautiful picture, or perhaps a good book. To use a metaphor similar to that of the mirror, we are all prisms which capture the colors of the world for a brief moment, only to scatter them back from whence they came as we are tossed along in the winds of the Spirit.

In ourselves, we are nothing; our life is hidden in God.

Don’t be impatient if you find all this hard to grasp. And if the thought of you not ultimately even being in control of who you are disturbs you, if the thought of you being completely helpless and entirely dependent on the existence, on the God, who surrounds you frightens you, that’s okay–it’s supposed to do that.

And that is why this recognition of our nothingness, of our utter destitution, of our unfathomable poverty of spirit, is so vital to spiritual combat–it exposes every flicker of pride and selfishness for what it is: a foolish delusion. To try and clutch the self is like grasping at sand; to exalt the self is like trying to carve a statue out of water because there is nothing solid, nothing unchanging, present to latch onto.

This truth cannot be emphasized enough; by acknowledging and keeping it in mind, we can avoid a great deal of trouble.

I’ve seen, as have I’m sure many other Christians, a dissatisfaction with the vast difference many people perceive between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament.  And, since it’s extremely early and I can’t sleep and Lent has just begun, what better time to take a look at it, yes?

Glad you agree.

Here’s the basic problem:  God in the OT seems mean– we’ve got plagues, floods wiping out earth, destruction, wandering in deserts, wars, etc., and of course, the biggie, the expulsion from Eden.  And then in the NT, in walks Jesus, who’s all about love and kindness and challenging other people’s lifestyles, and who, in many an idyllic view, never seemed to raise his voice or what have you.  The people who see these as highly incompatible have a good point– these don’t really fit.  But they then face the logical problem of this:  if God is truly God as we describe him, his nature ought to be constant.  That is, we say God is Love, God is Truth, etc., and these things don’t change.  Why, then, does God?

And if he does change, why is he worth our worship?  Can’t we pick the one we like better?

I think at the heart of this, though, is a misunderstanding of our predicament as sinners.  I’m like most people, I think, in that I think of most people as basically good people.  I like to think of myself as basically a good person.  And I think (and hope!) there are merits in these opinions.  But we have to understand divine-human relations as, well, a relationship– with the same principle behind it as any relationship:  namely, that it can be broken.

At my university, as at several, and particularly at military colleges, there is an honor code or honor system as you prefer.  Some schools with an honor system have varying punishments, but the strongest honor system schools only have one:  you’re out.  Why?  Because they understand that at the heart of every relationship is trust, and to break trust is to break the relationship.  All that remains is to sever formal ties;  it’s merely a formality.

This is where we stand as human beings.  We’ve broken the relationship between us and God– thousands of times, each of us.  And God is Love, Truth, and Life– so when we leave him, we get Death, Lies, and Destruction.  That’s not a vengeful God of the OT;  that’s justice, as painful as it is to admit it.  Those punishments are what we all deserve.

So why the “difference” between OT and NT?  Well, Jesus.  Because throughout human history, the one God of testaments Old and New had a plan to restore us to him, to bridge the chasm our sin creates between us, with a bloodied cross as our passage.  It’s not that God’s supposed vengence goes away;  it’s that Christ takes upon himself a punishment that is, justly, ours.  As Paul says, the “wages of sin is death.”  That means that the eternal separation and death we deserve gets redirected at Christ, the innocent but willing victim.

The “problem” between OT and NT exists only as a problem of perspective.  Mostly, we like to think of ourselves as the good guys– I know I’d like to idealise myself as right there with John and Mary at the foot of the cross.  But the problem is, we’re really like the thieves hanging right beside Christ.  For those of us who know it, we know we are there justly, not at the whim of a cruel god, but nailed there by our own sins.  The only “difference” between the New Testament and the Old Testament God is that from the Crucifixion onward, there is the opportunity to be like the Good Thief.  That is, to know that our punishment is just, and yet claim Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf:

Remember me, when you come into your kingdom.

–Rosy

Well, I was going to facebook this, and then I realised it was waaaay too cool for a status where gazillions might see it and instead decided to post it here.  I’ve started reading Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To by Anthony Destefano which Jen F. recently did a Three-Minute Book Club post on at Conversion Diary.  Don’t worry, as Jen points out (as does the author), this is not a “name it and claim it” book at all.  Rather, these prayers come from the depths of the human experience- and so far I can’t see God saying “no” to a single one of them.

I have actually attempted to pace myself on this book.. but I’m already at Chapter Five, “Am I a Terrible Person? God Forgive Me.”  And I found this great gem there:

Remember, a good Chirstian is not someone who doesn’t ever sin, but someone who repents every time he does.  That means that, ultimately, the definition of a successful life is one in which we repent one more time than we sin.

…

Lord, I know I did something terrible, and I feel awful… I’m sorry.  I’m going to try not to do it again.  But if I fail, I’m going to get right back up and try again. I may break the world record for committing this particular sin, but I’m also going to break the record for repenting of it! (emphasis added; no page citations b/c read via iTouch Kindle)

Amen!  I think this is exactly the kind of good “guilt” we ought to have- not the famously ridiculed “Catholic guilt” or “Jewish guilt” or whatever variant of guilt out there that has a reputation of being all about making the sinner feel horrible.  We ought to feel bad about the things we’ve done.  And knowing how bad we really are shows us just how much we need a savior.  And knowing just how much we need a savior shows us just how incredible it is that we actually got one.  And knowing that- well, that should remind any sinner just how much God loves us– which is a whole heck of a lot.  I really like that prayer- I think I’ll try to say it when I commit sins, especially ones I commit regularly.

-theRosyGardener

A quickie added in here to make me feel productive.. and of course, another Chesterton quote.  Amazing what you can find on the Chesterton Society website.. one day I’ll have to become a member (probably when I can afford it).  This one is from a book of essays GK published in 1901, titled The Defendant:

Most probably we are in Eden still. It is only our eyes that have changed.

I hadn’t actually seen that one before.  I have PDF printouts now of both the Chesterton Society’s quotations page and now their bibliography page, where I found it.  I think it is a beautiful way to look at our separation from God and each other through sin.

In Genesis we encounter this notion of different vision- Adam and Eve’s eyes have been “opened” by sin to their own nakedness, but in result they have been closed off by sin from being able to look at each other in love without lust, from walking with God, etc., etc.  We are all in a marvelous world, but with sin’s effects, wouldn’t it be just like us to wander about in it unaware of its wonders?

I remember reading in a grade school history book that some industrial cities in the 19th century had such activity at the factories that they were in constant haze, even having ash landing on doorsteps daily and the like.  I wonder if that isn’t what sin’s done to us, but on an individual level- like a milky glaze over our eyes.  There are some clear spots, different for each person I think, just as we all have strengths and weaknesses corresponding to our virtues and vices.  But with sin, we never see things fully, not as God sees his world and his people.

There are nice little sayings about seeing through heaven’s eyes or as God sees, and there is a lot of truth in those sparse words.  It seems to me it is only too likely we are in Eden and simply can’t see it, much like the heaven in The Chronicles of Narnia had a England that was somehow more England than the one they knew back on earth– in fact, everything was simply more itself.  If our eyes could return to their pre-fall state, perhaps we would all be able to walk through walls as Christ did, simply because we’d see that they aren’t really there.  It’s almost like the sci-fi/science idea of being “out of phase” (only I could find a Stargate connection with a Chesterton quote, lol).  The idea is that entire worlds, natural wonders, buildings, and lives may exist comingling with ours but without a trace to either of either because they are 180° out of phase with our own– exactly distinct enough to be invisible.  If sin wasn’t a 180° turn I don’t know what was.  We turn our backs on God all the time.

But Christ heals vision- the cross, a glorious “paradox” as GKC says, becomes the intersection of the world we live in and the world we left.  Such a grace this is to us!  Such a God to love us so, eyes unfettered and ungilded, unlike our own, to see past our infirmities to the children he loves.