Wholeness

"We spend a few years being kind to people, a few years without temptations of the flesh, and we think all our troubles are over. We have passed to angelic life and will never more experience movements of anger or sensuality. In other words, there is no original sin. But there is original sin, and it is so real that to ignore it, practically speaking, is not to be humble. Humility consists in accepting the whole of reality, and original sin is at least half of it."
-Thomas Keating Crisis of Faith, Crisis of Love

It has been my prayer recently that God would guide me into a wholeness in my understanding of myself and my understanding of Him. It has not been my temptation recently to fall into the trap of thinking to lowly of myself. I have not experienced a distance from God or any kind of aridity in our relationship. He has been close and active in my life. In reading Fr. Keating's account of the way Christ calls us into an ever deepening spirituality, I am invited to look at myself in the light of how I perceive Christ's call. I am overwhelmed at the quickness of my ability to rest in the comfort of consistency and the pride I feel at the levels I have already reached. My continual prayer is that I would not long rest in the comfortable, but as Keating writes, "accept the whole of reality," with the humilty that only Christ can bring.

Matt