Spiritual Readings                "Greetings from Whittier Presbyterian Church"

Email of Jan. 30, 2001

One of the best books I have read lately on spirituality is “The Holy Longing” by Ronald Rolheiser, ($17.56 at Amazon.com).  No less than Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking” says of this book:  “A master weaver is at work here…..I found my soul on every page.  At last we have a guide who helps us know what to do with the fire of desire within us.”  (Sheesh!  For all this promotion, I should get a commission!)

In the first chapter he wrestles out a definition of spirituality by comparing Janis Joplin, Mother Teresa and Princess Diana.  You’d be surprised at the results.  He plants most of us on a scale somewhere between Janis Joplin & Mother Teresa.  Using Kierkegaard’s definition of a saint as a person who can will one thing, Rolheiser says:

“Most of us are quite like Mother Teresa in that we want to will God and the poor.  We do will them.  The problem is we will everything else as well.  Thus we want to be a saint, but we also want to feel every sensation experienced by sinners;; we want to be innocent and pure, but we also want to be experienced and taste all of life;  want to serve the poor and have a simple lifestyle, but we also want all the comforts of the rich; we want to have the depth afforded by solitude, but we also do not want to miss anything; we want to pray, but we also want to watch television, read, talk to friends, and go out.”

Later, on a slightly different tack, he adds:

“It is not that we have anything against God, depth, and spirit, we would like these, it is just that we are habitually too preoccupied to have any of these show up on our radar screens.  We are more busy than bad, more distracted than nonspiritual, more interested in the movie theater, the sports stadium, and the shopping mall and the fantasy life they produce in us than we are in church.”

Perhaps it is just me, but I find Rolheiser to be right on target.  I’m not aiming to be a saint (I’m too Protestant for that), but I do desire a more spiritual life. 

What about you?  What distractions do you have in your life?  What can/will you do about them?  God waits for us all with eager longing (another kind of holy longing) and gives us the strength we need to go on as we turn God-ward.

Grace & peace to you all.

Geoff