Dear Sisters and Brothers,
Happy New Year!
Some
of us have made resolutions for the coming year, many of which aim at
self-improvement. We intend to eat less and to exercise more. Replace
watching TV with reading. Learn a foreign language or be more patient.
We
all need to make life-adjustments from time to time, and resolutions
can play a worthy role in that process. But I find that resolutions
often focus merely on the periphery of our lives. They rarely dig into
the deep core of our values.
Before
we get too far along in this year, let's take a little time to reflect
on what we make the center of our universe. Think about these questions,
or something like them:
What am I really about in this life? On what do I depend for my sense of significance? Where do I seek security?
Now, let's remember what Jesus taught us:
"'You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your
soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first
commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.'" (Matthew 22:37-39)
Jesus
urges us to nurture our relationships. Our relationship with God is our
starting point, and that relationship expresses itself in our
relationships with other people.
But
it would be a mistake to consider the Summary of the Law as a goal to
achieve, something that we can accomplish. Too many religious people
fall into this error of thinking. They figure that being good enough and
being spiritual enough will make God love them. And so they miss the
point entirely.
God
already loves us. He forsook all his infinite glory to be born for us
in a manger and to die for us on a cross. He did this for us precisely
because we cannot fulfill the Summary of the Law on our own. As Anne
Lamott put it, "If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God
for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three
most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so
loved, and in charge of so little." (from Help, Thanks, Wow)
The
life devoted to and inscribed by love is the life that God gives us
through Christ, not the achievement that God will grade in the end as if
life were a great exam. It is the destination to which Jesus will lead
us if we follow him, even if we often follow by shuffling or dragging
our feet or stumbling headlong in a daze.
Blessings to you all in this New Year! It is so exciting to imagine what Jesus has in store for us!
In Christ's Love,
+Jake
The Rt. Rev. Jacob W. Owensby, Ph.D.
The Diocese of Western Louisiana
