rest

Cease striving and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10

"...I've decided that if I had my life to live over again, I would not only climb more mountains, swim more rivers, and watch more sunsets; I wouldn't only jettison my hot water bottle, raincoat, umbrella, parachute and raft; I would no only go barefoot earlier in the spring and stay out later in the fall; but I would devote not one more minute to monitering my spiritual growth. No, not one.

Gerald May is incisive and humomorus:

The entire process (of self-development) can be very exciting and entertaining. But the

problem is there's no end to it. The fantasy that if one heads in the right direction and just

works hard enough to learn new things and grows enough and gets actualized, one will

be there. None of us is quite certain exactly where there is, but it obviously has something

to do with resting.

In retrospect, my ponderous ponderings on the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of my spiritual life, my assiduous search for shortcuts to holiness, my preoccupation with my spiritual pulse and my fasts, mortifications, and penances have wrought pseudobliss and the egregious delusion that I was securely ensconced in the seventh mansion of spiritual perfection.

What would I actually do if I had it to do all over again? Heeding John's counsel, I would simply do the next thing in love.

-Brennan Manning, The furious longing of God