TAKE COURAGE January 2017
This newsletter is a service of Weavings in partnership with The Academy for Spiritual Formation.
Courage and Faith by W. Paul JonesMost theologians agree that the "feel" of existence is anxiety. Acknowledged or not, to be finite is in each moment to dangle over the abyss of nothingness. This is frightening. We try to escape by projecting our anxiety onto persons or groups we can subjugate or destroy. Escape is never permanent. There is always something to trigger our primal insecurity. When paranoia regarding others is unsuccessful, our blame is projected inward into neurosis as an aversion to one's self. On and on goes the vicious circle.
This is why courage, the only adequate resolution of our primal predicament, is the road less taken. Courage requires a steadfast, honest gaze at the human condition, but we are paralyzed by the thought of doing it alone. Isolated we come into the world; and isolated we will leave. We experience this specter of primal loneliness either as the fear of rejection (the isolation of not belonging) or as the fear of ridicule (the isolation of not measuring up). Either way, this forces us to try to impress or please others.
Courage can be awakened only when we experience our dilemma as rooted neither in others nor ourselves, but in the fabric of existence itself. This is why faith is the only adequate courage—it enables us to resist self-deception and live in the full face of life as tragic. Christian courage is the treasure always contained in earthen vessels: "We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus..." (1 Cor. NRSV).
Faith is the courage to act as if we were not cosmically alone. But such courage is not of our own making, not some grim, lip-biting obstinacy Rather, it is rooted in a trusting heart, a heart confident that in Christ, God so enters the struggle of life with death that the ongoing Divine/human crucifixion can be lived under the hope of resurrection.
Christian courage is the heart of faith experienced as trust. Courage and encourage are related words, a fact revealed when my daughter, frightened to take her first dive called out, "Courage me, Daddy." I made the only response she needed: "It's okay, I'm here with you." So Paul characterizes as courage: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" (Rom. 8:35, RSV). No one and nothing! Why not? Because "I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38-39, RSV). This is the faith that bequeaths a courage that can face all things. God and all of us are in it together.[From Weavings: A Journal of the Christian Spiritual Life, Vol. XII, No. 3 (May/June 1997) (Nashville, TN: The Upper Room,1997), 12-13.]
Order single copies of the FINAL ISSUE of Weavings by calling 1.800.972.0433.Back issues of Weavings are available while supplies last.
Order Back Issues
Prayer for Courage
God of yesterday
and today,
thank you
for all the people
you have sent
to show your way
and shine your light.
Give us courage to hold
our light high. Amen.
Friends, we are grateful and humbled to have shared this journey with you for the past 30 years. We hope that you continue to be formed by the One who gave us the gift of the Weavings journal and that Weavings lives on in you as you grow ever closer to God and to one another.The Weavings Staff
-------
Share this email:
1908 Grand Avenue
Nashville, Tennessee 37212, United States
-------
No comments:
Post a Comment