Lectio
“Why do I spend so many of my waking hours trapped on the outer circumference of the inner richness of the life that I’m living? Why do I let the centrifugal force of the day’s demands spin me out into shallow places where what I am looking for, I will never find it there?”
— James Finley, Turning to the Mystics: Thomas Merton Session 1
Meditatio
God is constantly drawing us toward Himself — into Himself — inviting us to make Him the center of our lives. His love is the centripetal force of the universe, the gravity of grace that pulls us toward itself for our own sake and for the sake of holy union between creator and creature, lover and beloved, Father and child. God is the divine center from which our loves proceed and into which our lives are rightly directed.
But the world, with all of its traps and temptations, is constantly trying to pull us away from this center. Using the lures of power, money, and prestige, the world does its best to draw us away from God and into itself, not because it cares for us, but because it feeds on us, because the devil, in his envy, delights in drawing souls away from God. The world offers rewards that will fade with time and treasure that will rust in the weather of life’s storms. God, on the other hand, offers us infinity. He offers us Himself.
And yet, God is even in the world. For within the finitude of the categorial that leaves us wanting, we can feel His infinite goodness calling us, drawing us into itself, and beckoning us back to His center. We would not know the finite nature of the world at all were it not for God’s infiniteness inside us.
And if God has already crossed into the very finitude that spins us outward, entering the flesh Himself and redeeming the very shallowness that distracts us, then the way back to center was never a matter of outrunning the world’s pull through our own effort. It is a matter of consenting — of ceasing to resist the gravity of grace that has been drawing us home all along.
Through Christ, our waking hours, the very waking hours that seem to spin us out of the depths of God into the shallow places of self, become a gift. They become an opportunity. They become the cross upon which by grace through faith we are drawn into salvation — God’s center — which is love.
Oratio
Apart From You
spinning out of center
away from You
drowning in desire
grab my hand
bring me home my lover
into Your arms
I have no desire
apart from You
Contemplatio
Notice, for a moment, where your day has carried you — the noise, the pull, the shallow places you didn’t choose but drifted into. None of it has moved the center. Only your attention has wandered from it. Rest here a while longer, offering no resistance to His presence, and let Him do with you what only He can do.
Related Scripture
“No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day.”
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Not by Knowing, But by Loving: Brother Lawrence and the Practice of Simple Love (Lectio Divina), which sits with the same discovery that God can be found inside the ordinary, unremarkable stretches of a day rather than apart from them.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
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