[Pearls Ep. 121: Answering Atheism Tuesday]
We’ve been looking at ways we deepen our connection to Christ’s Ascension in our earthly spiritual life. We saw that Saints Bernard and Bonaventure encourage us to get a taste of the ascension in our daily life – to reflect on Christ’s ascension to heaven and to “ascend” to him in prayer.
Allow us a brief digression… those fun-loving crazies at the World Economic Forum (WEF) famously proclaimed their plan/scheme/nightmare that “you will own nothing and be happy.”
As is most often the case, lunatics tap into a kernel of truth and then run with it in new and stunningly destructive ways. In this case, the WEF loonies have tapped into the fact that, left to our own devices, we are not good at governing ourselves and moderating our desires.
That’s a reasonable observation. Their unreasonable conclusion is that we should turn ourselves over to them and entrust them with providing for our every need. In non-atheistic circles this is considered a god-complex.
At the other end of the WEF spectrum, and yet strangely aligned with it, is our materialistic society that says we must have everything fine-tuned to our every desire. One small example – have you noticed how many different varieties of M&M’s there are these days? It’s candy-coated madness!
Now, let’s put all this in the context of the ascension.
Any hot-air balloonist will tell you that the easiest way to take flight is to get rid of extra weight (we’ve never actually had this conversation with a hot-air balloonist, but we’re reasonably confident they’d say something like that).
And that’s also true in the spiritual life.
It’s hard to lift our spirit, to ascend to Christ in prayer if we’re distracted and laden with baggage and tethered to earthly things.
That is where St. John of the Cross comes in.
His motto was God or Nothing. It could have almost been God and Nothing Else, because he would not suffer any worldly allurements to come between Him and God.
St. Teresa of Avila (John’s spiritual mentor and companion) wrote, “the things of the world are passing away” (a phrase she learned from her father). St. John of the Cross took that to heart and rejected essentially all worldly pleasures – because they distracted him from the goodness of God.
“All pleasures?” Yes. To the point that he burned his only remaining prized possessions – letters written to him by Teresa of Avila. You see, John would return to her letters for comfort and encouragement. And why wouldn’t he? He who was shunned and imprisoned by his own religious order?! But he found he was seeking consolation in Teresa’s letters rather than directly from God. And so, the letters went up in smoke.
Now, few of us are called to the degree of asceticism lived out by John. But all of us are called to his degree of detachment – that nothing should have a hold on us and come before our relationship with God.
With that, here’s the authentic Christian version of the WEF slogan – “you will be attached to no earthly thing, so that you can attach yourself to God, and be happy.”
How do we practice that in everyday life? Do we have to be like John of the Cross and deny ourselves every earthly pleasure?
No – most of us are called to a life of enjoying the pleasures of the world in moderation and according to God’s plan for our life. There’s a great deal to this (that we delve into in Week 3 of 30 Days to Christian Mediation), but as a starting point, we grow in detachment by working to relieve ourself of the burden of attending to our every desire. Something we can all benefit from is saying “no” to the micro-adjustments that modern life offers us. Don’t turn on the seat-warmer in the car. Don’t put the hazelnut creamer in the coffee. Don’t fine tune the shower to just the right temperature. Don’t let our mind wander to petty thoughts about people in our life. And so on.
These little acts of denying our base instincts allow our spirit to soar above our fallen bodily nature, and we will find it easier and easier to keep our mind on Christ and heavenly things – to ascend, as it were.
Blessings on your journey with Christ –
Steve and Karen Smith
Interior Life