Lectio
“One of the brothers asked Isidore, pthe priest of Scetis, ‘Why are the demons so afraid of you?’ He said, ‘Ever since I became a monk, I have been trying not to let anger rise as far as my mouth.’”
— Abba Isidore, The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks
Meditatio
Jesus tells us that it is not what enters into us that causes us to fall, but what comes out of us (cf. Matthew 15:11). And as we go through our lives, many thoughts, words, and experiences will enter into our hearts that will cause us as to feel many different emotions. Much of this is entirely out of our control. We do not control, for example, what other people think, say, or do. And we may not even fully control how we feel about the things that are thought or said by others, whether about us or otherwise, or the things that are done by others, whether to us or otherwise. Quite often, our feelings simply arise in us, as if from a mysterious place we cannot access or take charge of on our own power. We do, however, have some say as to how we react to these feelings. We do have some power over the words that come out of our mouths and the actions we take. But, the more wrapped up we are in our feelings, the more we identify with them as who we are and not merely something that happens within us, the more difficult it is to separate what we feel and how we respond to those feelings, and all sorts of absurd and regrettable things will come out of our mouths, and we will act in ways that are sometimes altogether hurtful and shameful. If we have never experienced otherwise, it is easy to believe that our feelings are our identity — that what we feel is who we are — and then our entire lives are lived at the mercy of what happens to us and inside of us, rather than by our own volition.
By grace, however, we may be given a reprieve from this bondage of self. This is not something willpower can accomplish by turning itself against the feeling, however hard or long we try — such effort, aimed directly at the feeling, tends only to entangle us further in it. It is, rather, the fruit of contemplation, which does not aim at this separation at all, but simply rests in God, and finds the separation given, often without our noticing, as gift. In this way, our freedom becomes its own kind of Sabbath, in that it was given for us and not us for it, and in that it must be chosen, but only if and when prompted by God’s gift of Godself within us. Through the intervention of the Holy Spirit through prayer, meditation, and contemplation, as well as fasting and other Spirit inspired ascetic practices, we may begin to experience a separation between the stimulus and response of feeling, word, and deed. What once felt like utter powerlessness over our own selves begins to lighten its grips on us and we begin to sense that what happens to us, and what happens inside of us, is not us — that our fate is not determined by our feelings and that there is more to who we are than merely what we feel. It is as if the grace of the Spirit slows down time in our hearts and we are able to see the world for what it is and to experience our feelings as what they are, which is simply something that is happening around or within us, but not necessarily to us.
This does not mean we will be immune to the hurts of the world or even the seasons of our emotions. Rather, it means that we will understand, in our hearts, that we are no longer ruled by them, and that, through Christ, we are given a choice as to what to think, say, and do, in love, not simply in response to something we experience or feel. Through Christ, we are able to bear the cross of our environment and our emotions, and to love in spite of the world’s woundedness, in spite of our woundedness. Through Christ, we are able to forgive the world and even our own hearts, and to let our feelings — whether they be anger, sorrow, envy, lust, or whatever manner of self-centered fear we happen to feel in the moment — rise and fall within us, like the ocean tides, without either speaking them from our mouths or acting out on them with our deeds, and, in so doing, we become truly free, and there is nothing the demons are more afraid of than divine freedom in one of God’s children because, in that freedom, they know they have no more say.
Oratio
Leave Me Be
leave me be
all ye demons and deceivers
arising within me
with lies of identity
telling me I am you
that you are me
I pray not only for your silence
but that you be gone
away from me
out of me
by grace
by His mercy
the only remedy
the only truth
inside of me
Christ arise in me
free me from this misery
Contemplatio
There is a freedom in you that no amount of trying could have earned. It was given, not achieved — and it is given again, quietly, each time you stop grasping for it and simply rest. Stay in the quiet with this, saying yes to whatever He wants to stir in you.
Related Scripture
“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.”
— Romans 8:2 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Fleeing the God Who Waits: Thomas Merton, Distraction, and Love, which meets a different misuse of freedom — not anger seizing the mouth, but restlessness seizing the hours — and finds the same grace waiting underneath it.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
Leave a Reply