Summer Thoughts

During the summer months my reading has consisted in what I would call devotional literature: portions of John Chrysostom, Augustine, St. John of the Cross, de Caussade, St. Seraphim, Hannah Whithall Smith, Calvin’s Institutes, and Luther's Table Talk. I've done this purposefully because I've had an urge to feed my soul instead of my mind, feeling that I need to shake my encrusted presuppositions and habits.

All those men and women of the Spirit have challenged and worked changes in my inner self. But I find myself coming away with a satiety that makes me uncomfortable and still unfulfilled. All of these works share a common cast of characters-- two, to be exact: God and the human soul. Simply put, spirituality is vertical. Horizontal relationships with other human beings, especially Christians, are secondary fruits of the inner changes wrought on the soul by God Himself. That the horizontal itself might be a means of discovering God seems rare in the devotional literature.

That does not mean that these writers do not mention or exalt the place of the church in the believer’s life. But it is the church defined by function: it is the authoritative and only source of Word and Sacrament. The church becomes a shadowy abstraction that provides necessary services, instead of a living organism that brings the life of Christ to me through flesh and blood.

What is the Word unless it comes to me through another, who in his own uniqueness sees truths and tastes Christ in ways that my own frame of mind would keep me blind to until I die? What is the Word unless someone I trust holds me to it, and insists that I walk it out instead of intellectualizing about it?

And what is the Sacrament if we do not understand that we are one Body because we partake of the one Loaf? That as I feed on Christ I feed on my brother, and as I feed on my brother I feed on Christ?

I have surfeited myself this summer on the Greats, but am beginning to feel like a giant fat spider in a lonely corner. I would be happy with an evening of wine and jokes, of honesty and acceptance, of the warmth of other’s homes and children, of kitchen smells. There, beyond all the great works, I believe I could find Christ where He truly dwells.