Work, Rest, and the Desert Fathers on Humility

Well, school has certainly been busy the last month.

A lot has been going on, mostly good, certainly formative, but overwhelming at times (as in, several times a week).

And in the course of about two weeks, I heard this verse quoted three times, and I began to think it was something I needed to hear:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matthew 11:28

I’ve been realizing I need to learn how to rest.

I’ve been realizing that being overworked and stretched to the limits is less heroic, as I would like to think, and in reality more, well, wrong. Not how things are meant to be.

It is wrong not to recognize that my strength has limits.

It is wrong not to recognize that I can do nothing unless I abide in Christ, that the strength I have depends on him.

Dust returns to dust and the flower fades. I am subject to hunger, sickness, the need for sleep, aging, and one day I will die.

All men are sinners. There is darkness hiding in my heart.

So today, and this week, and in my life, do I trust that beyond me there is a strength of unfailing love that is made perfect in my weakness?

Can I trust that where I fail short Christ is victorious, and that his victory is a generous victory?

Can I rest in that grace?

Can I be defined by that grace?

What does that mean, for the posture of my heart, for my schedule this week, for the way I see others, for how I deal with business and failure and stress?

This, I pray that Christ will teach me, that I may slow down long enough to hear his voice, and that I may be humble enough to take his words to heart, about work and rest, and, again, about how to live life well, as he meant for me to live.

Well, since this all really has to do with the subject of humility, I think it would be good to share some of the sayings of the Desert Fathers (early monastics from the 4th century). We read these for class a couple weeks ago:

“A certain brother came to Abbot Poeman and said: What ought I to do, Father? I am in great sadness. The elder said to him; Never despise anybody, never condemn anybody, never speak evil of anyone, and the Lord will give you peace.”

“Abbot Alonius said: Humility is the land where God wants us to go and offer sacrifice.”

Timothy and Mary, part one

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned this summer, it’s a deeper appreciation for the difficulty of translating ideals into reality, plans into action, the exciting and imaginative conceptual into imperfect and everyday concrete.

I think of the lines T.S. Eliot penned in “The Hollow Men,” chilling but all-too-true:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

And so I’ve been reflecting on the last two months, trying to discern where the shadow fell, and why.

I think that my capacity to dream -to hope- is greater than my capacity to enact, greater than my capacity for the elements that form the foundation for action: persistence, patience, faith, sacrifice, love…

And I think that to some degree my hope itself has been mis-founded, resting more on an overconfident estimation of my own ability than on Christ’s ability to form me as his disciple, that process I so frequently resist, that life-long journey I wish could be done in a moment. One day there may be such a moment, a “twinkling of an eye” (1 Corinthians 15:51, 52), but that day is not now, and I remain myself, imperfect and needy for the outstretched arm, the loving rebuke, the spirit of the cross: that mundane, everyday sort of resurrection. In short, needy for the wiser guidance of real love amidst all my dreams of heroism.

The Companion

This week’s poem is from a little book by a Russian poet named Yevtushenko (not your most well known poet, but good, I think). I got it for 50 cents at the English department book sale.

The Companion- Yevtushenko

She was sitting on the rough embankment,
her cape too big for her tied on slapdash
over an odd little hat with a bobble on it,
her eyes brimming with tears of hopelessness.
An occasional butterfly floated down
fluttering warm wings onto the rails.
The clinkers underfoot were deep lilac.
We got cut off from our grandmothers
while the Germans were dive-bombing the train.
Katya was her name. She was nine.
I’d no idea what I could do about her,
but doubt quickly dissolved to certainty;
I’d have to take this thing under my wing;