Waiting with Our Response
Choosing life instead of
death demands an act of will that often contradicts our impulses. Our
impulses want to take revenge, while our wills want to offer
forgiveness. Our impulses push us to an immediate response: When
someone hits us in the face, we impulsively want to hit back.
How then can we let our
wills dominate our impulses? The key word is wait. Whatever happens,
we must put some space between the hostile act directed toward us and
our response. We must distance ourselves, take time to think, talk it
over with friends, and wait until we are ready to respond in a
life-giving way. Impulsive responses allow evil to master us, something
we always will regret. But a well thought-through response will help
us to "master evil with good" (Romans 12.21). (Nouwen)
| A sermon of St Gregory the Great |
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| For the love of Christ I do not spare myself in preaching him |
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‘Son of man, I have appointed you as watchman to the house of
Israel.’ Note that Ezekiel, whom the Lord sent to preach his word, is described
as a watchman. Now a watchman always takes up his position on the heights so
that he can see from a distance whatever approaches. Likewise whoever is
appointed watchman to a people should live a life on the heights so that he can
help them by taking a wide survey.
These words are hard to utter, for when I speak it is myself
that I am reproaching. I do not preach as I should nor does my life follow the
principles I preach so inadequately.
I do not deny that I am guilty, for I see my torpor and my
negligence. Perhaps my very recognition of failure will win me pardon from a
sympathetic judge. When I lived in a monastic community I was able to keep my
tongue from idle topics and to devote my mind almost continually to the
discipline of prayer. Since taking on my shoulders the burden of pastoral care,
I have been unable to keep steadily recollected because my mind is distracted by
many responsibilities.
I am forced to consider questions affecting churches and
monasteries and often I must judge the lives and actions of individuals; at one
moment I am forced to take part in certain civil affairs, next I must worry over
the incursions of barbarians and fear the wolves who menace the flock entrusted
to my care; now I must accept political responsibility in order to give support
to those who preserve the rule of law; now I must bear patiently the villainies
of brigands, and then I must confront them, yet in all charity.
My mind is sundered and torn to pieces by the many and serious
things I have to think about. When I try to concentrate and gather all my
intellectual resources for preaching, how can I do justice to the sacred
ministry of the word? I am often compelled by the nature of my position to
associate with men of the world and sometimes I relax the discipline of my
speech. If I preserved the rigorously inflexible mode of utterance that my
conscience dictates, I know that the weaker sort of men would recoil from me and
that I could never attract them to the goal I desire for them. So I must
frequently listen patiently to their aimless chatter. Because I am weak myself I
am drawn gradually into idle talk and I find myself saying the kind of thing
that I didn’t even care to listen to before. I enjoy lying back where I once was
loath to stumble.
Who am I — what kind of watchman am I? I do not stand on the
pinnacle of achievement, I languish rather in the depths of my weakness. And yet
the creator and redeemer of mankind can give me, unworthy though I be, the grace
to see life whole and power to speak effectively of it. It is for love of him
that I do not spare myself in preaching him.
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