Healthy spirituality has always been a question of putting
a number of things into a delicate balance and then
walking a tightrope so as not to fall off either side.
Spiritual health is very much the task of living the
proper tension between a number of things:
1) The tension between contemplation and action ... How
much of our lives should be given over to action and how
much to prayer? What is the essence of religion, private
prayer and private morality or service to others and
social justice? What ultimately will save the planet –
soul craft or statecraft? This tension is often depicted
as the one that is described in the biblical passage of
Martha and Mary. Martha engaged herself in the necessary
task of serving others while Mary simply sat at Jesus'
feet, doing nothing, but loving a lot. Jesus commends
Mary, saying she has chosen the better part. Christian
spirituality forever after has had to struggle with those
words. Is prayer really more important than active
service?
The saints would have us do both. A healthy spirituality
is not a question of choosing between Mary and Martha, but
of choosing both—contemplation and action, soulcraft
and statecraft, loving and doing, prayer and service,
private morality and social justice.
2) The tension between the monastic and the domestic ...
Where is God most easily found, in the church or in the
kitchen? In the monastery or in the family? In a celibate
monk's cot or in the marriage bed? At a shrine or in a
sports stadium? The God we believe in is both the Holy God
of transcendence and the Incarnate God of immanence. God
is, in a privileged way, found in both, the monastic and
the domestic, the church and the world, A healthy
spiritual life keeps a robust respect for both.
3) The tension between passion and purity ... What is the
secret for depth in sexuality, passion or purity? What
ultimately brings us a soul mate, eros or awe? Again, the
saints would say it is both. Sexuality will only surrender
its real depth and arouse its singular power to unite when
it is surrounded with both the fire of passion and the
reticence of purity.
4) The tension between duty and personal actualization ...
What ultimately is the higher call, duty or personal
fulfillment? Are we in this world to serve others or to
exercise fully the talents that God has put into us? Which
call to us is the higher moral imperative - that which
comes from family, church, and country or that which comes
from those centres within us that ache for the personal in
love, art, achievement, and immorality? Again, if the
saints can be believed, it is a question of both, of
balance, of walking a tightrope, of living a daily
tension.
5) The tension between this life and the next ... What is
more important, this world or the next? Within what
perspective do I make decisions, the span of my years here
on earth or the horizon of eternity? How much potential
happiness should I sacrifice here in this world in view of
eternal life? Is this life a vale of tears or a valley of
opportunity? The Christian view is that both are
important. When Jesus said that "I have come so that
you may have life he is referring both to life after death
and life after birth.
6) The tension between intellect and will ... What is more
important, the head or the heart? By which should we guide
our lives? What should be the ultimate basis for our
decisions, thought or feelings? What is more valuable,
insight or love? The wisdom of the saints suggests that a
healthy spiritual life, not to mention a full humanity,
demands both - head and heart, thought and feelings, the
rational and the emotional.
7) The tension between community and individuality ... Are
we in this world primarily to fulfill a personal vocation
or is our primary purpose a communitarian one? Might an
individual1S personal freedom be sacrificed for the good
of the group or should the common good be less important
than personal freedom? Again, a healthy spiritual life
walks the proper tension between these polarities. It
refuses to sacrifice the individual for the group even as
it asserts that we are essentially communitarian and that
we have non-negotiable obligations towards community.
Contemplation and action, the monastic and the domestic,
passion and purity, duty and self-actualization, this life
and the next, intellect and will, community and
individuality ... all of these, like a complete set of
keys on a piano, are needed if we hope to play all the
tunes that the various circumstances of our lives demand.
One is wise not to cut off part of one’s keyboard.
Fr. Ron Rolheiser
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