...words for our world situation:
...words for our own current current lifestyle
...words from one of my "distance mentors"
...as he shares from what he read for this own life this morning
...and passed it on/payed it forward
...thanks, David!
* * * * * * *
St. John of the Cross says that every quality or virtue which that Spirit really produces in our souls has three distinguishing characters...as it were a threefold National Mark—Tranquility, Gentleness, Strength.
All our action...and now we are thinking specially of action...must be peaceful, gentle and strong.
That suggests, doesn’t it, an immense depth, and an invulnerable steadiness as the soul’s abiding temper; a depth and a steadiness which come from the fact that our small action is now part of the total action of God, whose Spirit, as another saint has said, “Works always in tranquility.”
Fuss and feverishness, anxiety, intensity, intolerance, instability, pessimism and wobble, and every kind of hurry and worry...these, even on the highest levels, are signs of the self-made and self-acting soul; the spiritual parvenu [new-comer].
The saints are never like that. They share the quiet and noble qualities of the great family to which they belong.
...From The Spiritual Life by Evelyn Underhill
I love St John of the Cross, am curerntly researching a paper on his and St Teresa'a 'dark night of the soul' stuff. And The Spiritual Life is one of my favs. But, I have to say right now my favorite saying is "if you're not angry, you're not paying attention." I think it is time to get beyond labeling emotions as spiritual or not, and realize we can stay centered and still get angry.
Posted by: Anj | September 22, 2008 at 09:42 AM
Wes and David,
This is just what I needed to hear. Thank you.
Michael
Posted by: Michael Lee Stallard | September 22, 2008 at 12:48 PM
Great words for THIS stage of my journey, Wes. Thanks.
Skeptical only of the part about saints "never like that." Saints I have known, of the uncanonized variety, are sometimes like all manner of ugly things while moving toward the beauty Underhill refers to.
Posted by: Scott Dewey | September 25, 2008 at 10:24 AM
Tranquility, Gentleness, Strength. . . how far removed from where most of us live in the Tyranny of the Urgent! Thanks, Wes, for the reminder that the important must take priority over the urgent.
Posted by: Jim Sawyer | September 25, 2008 at 11:11 AM