To Be Like A Child
Why "To Be Like A Child"? Earlier this semester, I was sitting in a colleague's class, and the topic was Nietzsche. The class was passionately discussing Nietzsche's rage at ... well, at everything and everyone ... and everything and everyone that represented what he thought God represented. With Nietzsche's voice many of them were able to speak about their own rage, or skepticism, or criticism ....
Finally, I couldn't constrain myself any longer and I said, I don't understand Nietzsche. Here he is, angry at everything, skeptical about everything -- Christians, religious people, the world ... God. But really, maybe it's a lot simpler? Maybe faith is really just about surrendering to the God who loved us first. Maybe really, it's about being like a child ....
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I know I am far from being a child. But on the door of my bathroom, I had for many years (until finally the adhesive on the tape wore off and it fell), a print-out of a poem by Karl Rahner, in which I emphasized one line:
God of My Life
Only in love can I find you, my God.
In love the gates of my soul spring open,
allowing me to breathe a new air of freedom
and forget my own petty self.
In love my whole being streams forth
out of the rigid confines of narrowness and anxious self-assertion,
which makes me a prisoner of my own poverty and emptiness.
In love all the powers of my soul flow out toward you,
wanting never more to return,
but to lose themselves completely in you,
since by your love you are the inmost center of my heart,
closer to me than I am to myself.
But when I love you,
when I manage to break out of the narrow circle of self
and leave behind the restless agony of unanswered questions,
when my blinded eyes no longer look merely from afar
and from the outside upon your unapproachable brightness,
and much more when you yourself, O Incomprehensible One,
have become through love the inmost center of my life,
then I can bury myself entirely in you, O mysterious God,
and with myself all my questions.
- Karl Rahner, SJ
(emphasis added)
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As you can tell, this is going to be my faith blog. :)
Finally, I couldn't constrain myself any longer and I said, I don't understand Nietzsche. Here he is, angry at everything, skeptical about everything -- Christians, religious people, the world ... God. But really, maybe it's a lot simpler? Maybe faith is really just about surrendering to the God who loved us first. Maybe really, it's about being like a child ....
======
I know I am far from being a child. But on the door of my bathroom, I had for many years (until finally the adhesive on the tape wore off and it fell), a print-out of a poem by Karl Rahner, in which I emphasized one line:
God of My Life
Only in love can I find you, my God.
In love the gates of my soul spring open,
allowing me to breathe a new air of freedom
and forget my own petty self.
In love my whole being streams forth
out of the rigid confines of narrowness and anxious self-assertion,
which makes me a prisoner of my own poverty and emptiness.
In love all the powers of my soul flow out toward you,
wanting never more to return,
but to lose themselves completely in you,
since by your love you are the inmost center of my heart,
closer to me than I am to myself.
But when I love you,
when I manage to break out of the narrow circle of self
and leave behind the restless agony of unanswered questions,
when my blinded eyes no longer look merely from afar
and from the outside upon your unapproachable brightness,
and much more when you yourself, O Incomprehensible One,
have become through love the inmost center of my life,
then I can bury myself entirely in you, O mysterious God,
and with myself all my questions.
- Karl Rahner, SJ
(emphasis added)
=======
As you can tell, this is going to be my faith blog. :)
posted by rowie at
1:30 AM
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