Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Today’s reading

Philippians 2:12-13

“Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you to will and work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).

Prayer

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. I hear the words, O Constant Compassion, but I have no fears, not where you are concerned. I know in you an immensity, a generosity of heart, a determined conviction of holy purpose to bring all you love into the all-encompassing embrace in which you hunger to hold all that is ... and me. I know this, and for this assurance I have only you to thank.

You aim to hold every moment of time and existence, drawing them into the immensity of your bosom, like a mother holding her infant beloved to her chest in a holy care that transcends her ability to speak. You shall hold all that is and has been to your breast, bringing healing to the nations and to our conflicted souls that we might know life abundant and eternal as you intend. Such is your purpose.

I have no fear about this, although I don’t like your timing. For we need the fullness of your eternal embrace now. Now. And that is where my fear is. My fear is about me and how I lose track of the one true thing I know: You, and your inexplicable love for this universe, for this world in all its fractured frenzy, and for me

I fear my own waywardness, my wandering heart, my impulsive ways, my occasional sloth, my self-seeking, self-justifying ways in which I fumble away the immensity of your love that is always at hand. I lose you each time I begin to believe that who I am is what I do, what I earn, what I produce, what status or influence I possess. Then the old voices arise to accuse and abuse, reminding me again that I count for little in this world. Perhaps they are right.

But it does not matter. For I hurl my anxious, accusing heart into the immensity of your embrace, claiming again the love in which you hold me and all things, and always will. And again I find assurance that you neither falter nor fail, O Constant Compassion. Let me so know you this day. Amen.