I have been rereading some of Thomas Keating’s work this week. Below are a few words that gave me pause and drew me in for some pondering.
Hear Keating in light of a quote I shared with you on Sunday, April 7th by poet W. H. Auden: “We would rather be ruined than changed. We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the present moment and let our illusions die.”
◘ “Growth is the challenge of the gospel. The great sin in the New Testament is to refuse to grow and to choose to stay as we are.”
◘ “Repent” — that fundamental call in the gospel to begin the healing process — means to change the direction in which you are looking for happiness.
◘ . . . . the spiritual journey is not a success story or a career move. It is rather a sense of humiliations of the false self.
◘ Growth in faith is growth in the right perception of reality” (TK).
It seems to me the question that presents itself to us like an empty tomb is “Now what? What do we do after Easter?” Perhaps a start to a response (for all of life is a responsorial for the person who is awake), is to “practice resurrection” as Wendell Berry encourages us in the last terse sentence of his poem “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” But here’s the catch, and Berry the farmer, the man for all seasons, is all-too-aware not only that “. . . . Even falling raises/ In praise of light” but that falling is another name for autumn and autumn is nature’s reminder that there is no resurrection not preceded by death.*
Even in Easter, or especially in the season of Easter and from there through Pentecost and into the season of ordinary time, the practice is never only to “practice resurrection.” It necessarily means to practice dying as well. Hinged as we believe it always is to resurrection, this is called the paschal mystery which is not merely a reference to three days that happened a long time ago in the Middle East but the mystery of life, the mystery of our lives, and the mystery we are dared, invited, and encouraged to walk into each day in faith and trust.
Legend has it St. Benedict was asked “What do you monks do all day behind those monastery walls?” He replied, “Fall down. Get up. Fall down. Get up.” Every little fall (and some don’t feel so little) is a little good (and some don’t feel so good) Friday. And every little “giddy up” is a little Easter and an occasion to practice resurrection.
*Wendell Berry quote from “Another Sunday morning comes”