The spiritual life is a stern choice. It is not a consoling retreat from the difficulties of existence, but an invitation to enter fully into that difficult existence, and there apply the Charity of God, and bear the cost. ... Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)I like Evelyn Underhill. Always have. She is a challenging and encouraging spiritualist. This quotation is interesting to me given some of the thinking I have been doing around church growth and the like. Not that I have many answers, but I am leaning more toward this kind of understanding of the church. Certainly God is a Comforter...well, the Spirit is. And this is not to be ignored. But the call of the church to be the transformative agent in the world means that the individual Christian may find their own life being turned upside down or inside out in the process. This is not always easy. It is not always painless. In fact, it is almost always painful. It is a healing pain, but pain nonetheless. This is also how I understand the prophetic call in scriptures...a hot coal on the tongue. This is Christ's call to the rich young man. It was so difficult that he walked. That will happen, too. And we will walk and return and walk again. That is part of the journey.
Applying the charity of God can be a gentle work. That is to be certain. de Sales says it this way:
Don't lose any opportunity, however small, of being gentle toward everyone. Don't rely on your own efforts to succeed in your various undertakings, but only on God's help. Then rest in his care of you, confident that he will do what is best for you, provided that you will, for your part, work diligently but gently.But that gentleness is not an eventless existance or a transformationless existance. And I think that is what Underhill is after. Merton speaks similarly about his experience in the monestary, thinking he could escape his anxiety or the trials of the world by becoming more spiritual. He discovered to his initial chagrin that the opposite was true. The spiritual life is an honest one. It demands rigor and courage. Posted by tripp at July 25, 2006 08:31 AM
It also helps to remember as I learnt in church school decades ago that 'Comforter' has more than its modern meaning of consolation but rather in its archaic sense means 'strengthener'. He's there to give you a boost to face that difficult existence squarely just like Underhill described.
Posted by: The young fogey at July 26, 2006 10:57 PM