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I seem to have a really hard time finding the balance between God's mercy and His demands of righteousness. This part has never made any sense to me. When I was a Baptist child and adolescent, I knew my sins were forgiven, past, present, and future, and I didn't worry too much about all the admonitions to "be perfect", to "go and sin no more". I figured that was just something to strive for, God knew we couldn't REALLY do that, so I just sort of...ignored those instructions. Not that I wasn't trying to be "good", but I just didn't worry too much if I screwed up. God had forgiven me already, right? That is what he did on the cross, right? All my strivings to be good were just acts of thankfulness for that forgiveness.
Well, I could try all I wanted to ignore those admonitions, they wouldn't really go away. I spent a lot of my late teens and twenties just ignoring God in general, because He didn't make any sense to me, and there didn't seem to be anyone who knew anymore than I did. Then I discovered Orthodoxy...and authority and tradition and Truth. I suppose it is always true the pendulum must swing all the way in the other direction before it can land in the middle. And it has to keep swinging until it winds down and stops...in the middle. I just keep on a-swinging. For the past several years I have gone way too far to the other side in my thinking....the demands to be perfect and stop sinning weighing on me like anchors, dragging me down until I'm just stuck in the muck on the bottom. I can't do it. I can't be perfect. I'm totally incapable. Well, that must mean I'm not really a Christian, I'm a lost soul, I'm damned and there is nothing really I can do about it.
And then....thank God...the pendulum begins to swing again and before I go too far back the other way...I see the middle ground. I get to see it, for just a moment as I swing by. Yesterday, I saw if for that brief moment in Confession as the priest talked to me, counseled me, took me out of the muck and lifted me up. For just a moment. I'm holding onto the moment for all I'm worth today as I contemplate the Cross and what it means. I don't really know. I couldn't put it into words if someone had a gun to my head. But for a tiny second, I did know. I understood the balance between the demands for righteousness and the outpouring of mercy. I saw Love. I saw it for just a second.
Oh if I could only stay there.
Well, I could try all I wanted to ignore those admonitions, they wouldn't really go away. I spent a lot of my late teens and twenties just ignoring God in general, because He didn't make any sense to me, and there didn't seem to be anyone who knew anymore than I did. Then I discovered Orthodoxy...and authority and tradition and Truth. I suppose it is always true the pendulum must swing all the way in the other direction before it can land in the middle. And it has to keep swinging until it winds down and stops...in the middle. I just keep on a-swinging. For the past several years I have gone way too far to the other side in my thinking....the demands to be perfect and stop sinning weighing on me like anchors, dragging me down until I'm just stuck in the muck on the bottom. I can't do it. I can't be perfect. I'm totally incapable. Well, that must mean I'm not really a Christian, I'm a lost soul, I'm damned and there is nothing really I can do about it.
And then....thank God...the pendulum begins to swing again and before I go too far back the other way...I see the middle ground. I get to see it, for just a moment as I swing by. Yesterday, I saw if for that brief moment in Confession as the priest talked to me, counseled me, took me out of the muck and lifted me up. For just a moment. I'm holding onto the moment for all I'm worth today as I contemplate the Cross and what it means. I don't really know. I couldn't put it into words if someone had a gun to my head. But for a tiny second, I did know. I understood the balance between the demands for righteousness and the outpouring of mercy. I saw Love. I saw it for just a second.
Oh if I could only stay there.