01.06.08
confessions
Though I’m tempted to follow a more recent example and talk about “Circumfessions…”
It’s difficult to talk about personal spirituality, because it tends to make us (me) sound spiritual. But I’ve come to understand something about myself these past few years.
I don’t pray because I’m spiritual — I pray because I am not. If I don’t pray, I drift from the center and soon I have no idea where.. or who.. I really am. Similarly, I don’t gather with people because I am spiritual, but because I am needy. And I don’t fast because I’m spiritual — I fast because I am not, but I would like to be. When I find I need strength, what I often encounter is inner resistance.. weakness. Fasting seems the only weapon I have against my own weakness.
I’ve decided that fasting is a discipline I need to encounter more regularly. Honestly, I seem to fast once a year for a day or two on average, because frankly I enjoy eating and I dislike being hungry. And perhaps at base I’ve been a little suspicious of fasting. It still has connotations of religiosity.. of a negative and masochistic spirituality.
But Jesus was neither negative nor masochistic.
This Christmas my daughter bought me the GANDHI movie. I told her I would love to have the deluxe DVD version and watch the movie again. Shortly after Christmas day I dug out two books from my library: both are biographies, but the shorter is more helpful for me, written by E. Stanley Jones, the American missionary who became his friend and a great admirer, in spite of their differences. It’s a powerful little book because the life of Gandhi becomes such a powerful lens for the life of Jesus and the call of the Gospel. And when I observe the life of this man I feel ashamed of myself and my weakness. I realize that I remain too tied to comfort and my own needs.
Fasting was often used by Gandhi as a means to self-purification. Jones writes, “When he felt that he was not an adequate instrument of the Divine, he undertook a fast to bring himself back to a more complete alignment. For instance, he fasted twenty-one days because of the Moslem-Hindu riots. He did not fast against those riots, but against himself because he was not strong enough to stop them.”
“Self-purification.” It’s so difficult to even use that little phrase. I know that Christ has purified me. I know that the coal has touched my lips. Yet I know also that in this world I need to be cleansed daily, that I do not remain pure as I walk these dusty roads. Ego is alive and well; the flesh wars against the spirit. And while I am not a Calvinist (holding more closely to Anabaptist readings), I recognize that not everything is right with my soul. Sanctification is an ongoing process of cooperation with the Spirit to birth Jesus in me.
Reading Jones has been inspirational, and has changed something in me. My first experiments have been encouraging. At the end of the day I have been a little hungry, but more focused and restful in spirit. More “attuned” to God and His kingdom.
Lord, lead us all deeper toward the still and restful place of your Spirit. May Your will be done, may Your kingdom come.
Rick said,
January 6, 2008 at 6:47 am
“Deeper” has become such an overused word, hasn’t it? And yet, it’s the only one that fits most times. Thanks for something to dig with this morning.