Matthew under the arm 75
Columba waited for sometime but eventually decided to go on ahead of me. According to rumour, he is quite a few days ahead. This is the first time I have been on my own on this pilgrimage. What's more, the rain has not stopped all day. Despite the fact that I keep my Gospel of Matthew under my arm, as it were, it's getting sodden and dog-eared! True, I do find Columba sometimes a pain. True, I occasionally feel even humiliated with him. But...to be on my own now. All I really want is to find him... He is my guide. I feel secure with him. Every village I have been through, I have been asking people if they have seen this little man called Columba, with wide eyes and a scraggy beard, walk through with that urgent step of his. Invariably, all I heard was 'Oh yes! Him! He passed through here several days ago. All he said to us was, "If my fellow pilgrim asks for me, tell him I have been here."' So, what if I never catch up with him? What if he goes in one direction and I in another - and I am lost! It was only when I found a bunk in a hostel earlier this evening, that I remembered him saying to me: 'The wisdom of insecurity will guide you.... the wisdom of Christ!'
Matthew 16:6-12....
Religious certainty is destructive. To believe in a religious system that gives certain guidance leads to the feeling that we have licence to decide others fate: anything from over-riding control, rejection to a crucifixion - even genocide. That person, those people are denying my religion, therefore they are blasphemous and must be alienated. We are hungry for certainty as if it were bread in the wilderness. We are deluded enough to believe that certainty in religion will banish our deepest secret - fear. The dangerous ‘leaven’ of religion.
Through Your Wisdom, I would realise the freedom of insecurity.
What is the gift you have received, the generosity you have experienced that has been given without any expectation - that has created a sense of freedom in you? Picture the giver and the gift. Go before Christ and 'hold' it out to Him in deep thanks. Allow yourself to smile! What certainties have you been given? Any? Do you really want them? Generosity is an act out of uncertainty, even insecurity, otherwise it wouldn't be generosity. Generosity is risky. Now enter your prayer and experience the freedom that spiritual insecurity, uncertainty brings. (‘Blessed are the Poor in Spirit...’)
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
Matthew 16:6-12....
Religious certainty is destructive. To believe in a religious system that gives certain guidance leads to the feeling that we have licence to decide others fate: anything from over-riding control, rejection to a crucifixion - even genocide. That person, those people are denying my religion, therefore they are blasphemous and must be alienated. We are hungry for certainty as if it were bread in the wilderness. We are deluded enough to believe that certainty in religion will banish our deepest secret - fear. The dangerous ‘leaven’ of religion.
Through Your Wisdom, I would realise the freedom of insecurity.
What is the gift you have received, the generosity you have experienced that has been given without any expectation - that has created a sense of freedom in you? Picture the giver and the gift. Go before Christ and 'hold' it out to Him in deep thanks. Allow yourself to smile! What certainties have you been given? Any? Do you really want them? Generosity is an act out of uncertainty, even insecurity, otherwise it wouldn't be generosity. Generosity is risky. Now enter your prayer and experience the freedom that spiritual insecurity, uncertainty brings. (‘Blessed are the Poor in Spirit...’)
+Martin
Argyll and The Isles
Labels: The wisdom of insecurity
posted by Martin at 7:10 pm
4 Comments:
Uncertainty! Insecurity! Dangerous words. They describe feelings, a state of being that is uncomfortable either physically or/ and psychologically/ emotionally.
But my uncertainty and insecurity can be healed and used by the Lord Jesus Christ to be a witness, a testimony to others, of his abiding and unfinished work in me. This is that work which by the power of his promised Holy Spirit is changing me ever more and more into his likeness.
The only certainty we have is in the abiding finished work of Jesus on the Cross-, and his resurrection and ascension, also his promise that the Holy Spirit will be our guide. My problem and the same for many others is that so often we want to do it our selves instead of letting him!
My meditation is on the promise “My God shall supply all your needs in Christ Jesus (Philippians ch.4: v19). That’s everything; my emotional needs for certainty when I am uncertain; my physical needs when I lack necessities, and my spiritual needs when I lose the certainty of his love for me and need to be reminded of the benefits which are mine as promised in scripture.
Thank you Lydia - purple - the colour of healing.Beautiful name you have. The point about Following the Way is that it is by its very nature insecure. Of course, Insecurity IS a dangerous word. Christianity IS dangerous as it demands everything - costing not less than everything! THEREFORE there are no certainties... I can say, with Simone Weil, that God is the Absolute Good. That is the beginning of a faith posture, bit it comes with no certainties or security. If there were we would be dependent on them and not hear the demand to give all. Not that I do of course, because I DO want security... like wanting to have Columba back.
I agree Martin that christianity is a most dangerous lifestyle to follow because God demands all from us when He knows we are incapable of giving all 100% of the time. If I do not place in Him and His word all the trust that I am able to (even though it may well fall short of 100%) then I am not following and I'd rather have the certainty of life in Jesus than a godless life.
All of life to us as human beings is uncertain but it is not to Him who created us and loved us enough to send us his only son to bring us back into a full and transformed relationship with him.
You provoke much thought. Thankyou.
But what if we can't help being / feeling certain ? If we can cry out with S.Paul'I know whom I have believed. The great 'Amen' without whom 'vacant creation's lamps appal'as Pascal said. That is matter for reverent thanksgiving, surely. Maybe some of us are too weak to be left in uncertainty, to be tried spiritually or psychologically by 'cliffs of fall'That's why He gives us the a certainty of a touching place in the Eucharist,when whatever may we feel or believe, He is there because he said He would be.
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