In
a recent post I listed some of my Anglican mentors. I have subsequently had
reason to revisit some of the writing of one of them. I came across something I
think is worth sharing:
The Christian gospel is largely concerned with
the issue of fretting and not fretting. We live in a fretting world, and the gospel can be paraphrased
"fret not, only believe".
. . .
There is certainly much to fret about. In the
world there are ugly and frightening spectres; the contrasts of affluence and
poverty; racial conflict mounting higher; the drift of the Western democracies
into spiritual aimlessness. Who would not fret with these spectres at the door?
Not only the world but the Church as an institution makes you fret. Many, I
know, find it difficult to serve it with happy contentment. Sometimes it frets
by its old-fashionedness, its inability to reform itself, its shirking of challenging
issues. And sometimes it frets in the opposite way: by a seeming loss of
historic values, by a playing down of the supernatural, by a concern to be
"with it". If we are ourselves conceited, we fret about what others
in the Church are doing or not doing in a "we and they" superiority;
if we are humble, we include ourselves within the criticism. In either case, we
may fret; and a kind of nervous fretting can bedevil the Church's life. So the
world may fret you, the Church may fret you, and there will be the frettings of
a more personal kind always round the corner. Tiredness, monotony, staleness,
the small results which seem to come from immense expenditure of labour. So,
all in all, there will be times when you find yourself saying, "Who will
show us any good?"
So a mist comes to hide from your awareness some
of the realities in which you believe: sin and judgement, mercy and joy. The
answer is drawn from the scriptures, from our divine Lord, from the lives of
the saints, and from your own experience as a Christian. The answer is a deep,
sparkling well of truth, which is Christ himself, and from it our fears are
washed away and our thirsty spirits are refreshed.
Great blog you havee here
ReplyDelete