Category Archives: Quotes

Efficiency… Really?

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A bit I read today…

When a journalist asked Thomas Merton to diagnose the leading spiritual disease of our time, the monk gave a curious one-word answer: Efficiency.

Why?

“From the monastery to the Pentagon, the plant has to run… and there is little time or energy left over after that to do anything else.”

Hmm.

A part of me feels what he’s describing.  Another part of me says, “Yeah, but what do you suggest?”  A third part of me just says, “Jay, take this much to heart–make sure you spend yourself on what you deem most worthwhile.  If you don’t, how you get spent will be determined by forces outside of yourself.  And these forces are not likely to care whether they’re lining up with your Maker’s wishes for your life or not.  You’ll have to exercise that control yourself.”

Any part of you responding to Mr. Merton?

Like the Sun

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This is how C.S. Lewis described his world view or the spiritual filter that governed his life…

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen; not only because I see it, but also because by it I see everything else.”

My version: I believe partially because of what I see in Christ’s message.  I believe even more because when I look at my world and my life through his message–it all makes more sense than it did before.


The Fight to Pray (25/28)

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prayPrayer and distractions… anyone else know an undeniable tie between those two words?

I’ve listened to friends and read the words of strangers, together trying to find some resolution for my ADHD prayer life.  Some practical little tidbits have been found to be helpful; much of it though makes no difference.

Today, I read the most significant thing about distractions that plague prayer.  Tell me if this doesn’t speak to you.

From a Brit named Herbert McCabe…

“People often complain of ‘distractions’ during prayer.  Their mind goes wandering off on to other things.  This is nearly always due to praying for something that you do not really much want; you just think it would be proper and respectable and ‘religious’ to want it.  So you pray high-mindedly for big but distant things like peace in Northern Ireland or you pray that your aunt will get better from the flu–when in fact you do not much care about these things; perhaps you ought to, but you don’t.  And so your prayer is rapidly invaded by distractions arising from what you really do want–promotion at work, let us say.  Distractions are nearly always your real wants breaking in on your prayer for edifying but bogus wants.  If you are distracted, trace your distraction back to the real desires it comes from and pray about these.  When you are praying for what you really want, you will not be distracted.  People on sinking ships do not complain of distractions during their prayer.”

Boom!  Herbert, you are on to something, my friend.

Now go and pray with your heart.  That kind of praying may prove dangerous enough to see your life transformed and your prayers shaking things!

Redirected (6/28)

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I confess to slacking off.  This February-post-a-day thing isn’t flying yet.  But it’s not lack of desire;it’s lack of quality blog thoughts.

Sometimes I’m in deep-thoughts-everyday mode like Chelsey.  But I’ve got other times too.  These are those times.

So I redirect you to the thoughts of two others that caught me recently…

“We must put away all effort to impress and come with the guileless candor of childhood.” (A.W. Tozer)

Put away my efforts to impress… do I do that?  How much of my coming to God is about trying to look however it is that I think I’m supposed to?  How often do I just come as unassuming as a child?  Sigh.  I need to do that.

“If you are hungry for the fire to fall in your church, then you need to just crawl up on the altar and say, ‘God, whatever it takes.  I lay myself on the altar and ask You to consume me with Your fire, Lord.’  Then you can follow the lead of John Wesley, who explained how he drew such large crowds during the First Great Awakening: ‘I set myself on fire, and the people come to see me burn.'”  (Tommy Tenney)

Set myself on fire?  Hmm.  Not sure that’s the most inviting imagery, but I know what he’s getting at.  Sounds like that living sacrifice idea–and I know that’s the call for anyone who’s paying attention.  God, teach me how this works.

Intention

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Intention is a big deal.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”  That another translation of the same sentence.

The Jedi version was, “Do, or do not.  There is no try.”  So said Master Yoda.

So also said William Law.  He wrote a book called “A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life”–quickly seen to be a book about intention.  His version of Yoda’s thought goes like this…

“It was this… intention that made the primitive Christians such eminent instances of piety, that made the goodly fellowship of the Saints and all the glorious army of martyrs and confessors.  And it you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.”

I won’t bother debating how today’s “average believer” compares with that of another time and place.  I simply want to highlight that whatever we become… it will be because we intended to become just that.

That’s the power of intention.