My friend Bryan reflects on how the Psalms speak all our human emotions as we pray them in daily prayer today. It made me think of what stood out to me this morning in our Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. Off and on, I struggle with very similar emotional and mental "down" times as well. This little portion of the Canticle this morning was appropriate:
For though the fig tree blossom not nor fruit be on the vines, though the yield of the olive fail and the terraces produce no nourishment,
Though the flocks disappear from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet will I rejoice in the Lord and exult in my saving God.
God, my Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet swift as those of hinds and enables me to go upon the heights. –Habakkuk 3
This kind of thing happens fairly often to me as I pray the daily office. Real things that I'm going through just jump out at me and come alive. That piece from Habakkuk above is an example. It's not about feeling God and being happy. Even the last part there about God being my strength, is a statement, as I see it, of faith - faith even in the midst of the proverbial terraces producing no nourishment. And that business about continuing to rejoice in the Lord isn't about an emotional joyful feeling bubbling up. It may well at times but this is about a choice to keep on walking even though you're not quite seeing the end very clearly - even though all your bones and muscles ache - even if you have to walk slower sometimes, you keep walking.
"Then, if we cannot as yet think alike in all things, at least we may love alike. Herein we cannot possibly do amiss." John Wesley
"Keep your eyes on the crucifix, for Jesus without the cross
is a man without a mission, and the cross without Jesus
is a burden without a reliever." Fulton J. Sheen
"...I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be
completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen
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