Part of my personality works itself out in habit. Most of the time, if something is important to me, I'll find myself doing it pretty much in the same way at the same time, and mostly indefinitely. Sometimes, I'm fortunate enough to direct this force to good ends. When I was a junior in high school, I somehow became convinced of the necessity and benefit for daily Scripture reading and prayer. I started doing it, and before I knew it, it was a habit. (That of course, does not mean I've been perfect in my observance. During most of my recent seminary experience, oddly enough, I was more habitual in not reading Scripture and praying. Weird.)
However, that being said, my sense of my "progress" in the faith has not been with regard to proficiency in Christian habits, nor even in ever-greater ethical and moral purity. Rather, my barometer of spiritual good things has been: my own feelings.
This came out recently in an email discussion I had with a local Orthodox priest, Fr. Patrick Reardon. I sent him an email bemoaning my sorry fate: I wasn't praying or going to worship, I felt all dark and icky. Of course, I was hoping for some insightful, laser-focused word of wisdom (Fr. Patrick has that "feelings-be-damned-say-it-like-it -is" side to him). I thought he might say something like, "Gosh, that's terrible. You'd better get back to your prayers and your Bible, and by all means hie thyself back to worship!" Instead, he said (in rough paraphrase), "This sort of thing will not end until you quit using your feelings as a basis for judging your spiritual life."
Well, then my analytical, argumentative side kicked in. "So what the heck am I supposed to do about this? I mean how do I know where I'm at spiritually?" Well, you know, it appears that it doesn't really matter whether or not I "know" where I'm at spiritually. It seems there's this thing out there called "duty." And if it's between some sort of awareness of my spiritual state and duty, duty is the pole I'm to gravitate towards.
"Ah, good! So if I'm doing my duty consistently, then . . ." Nope. Ain't like that at all. I'm to just do my duty. It is within the parameters of duty, not spiritual sensitivity, that the Spirit works. I don't love my neighbor because I feel like it. I love my neighbor because it's my Christian duty. Whether I feel or sense anything spritually in loving my neighbor is beside the point. This, admittedly, is a new concept to me.
Duty is not works righteousness. It's not as though I'm earning my salvation by doing my duty. Rather, duty is apparently something like cutting a channel through my soul. Through it, the living water of the Spirit will flow and irrigate the arid land that is so often my life of faith. Duty won't ever really give me much of a barometer of "spiritual progress"--since all my progress can be wiped out so quickly with the giving in to temptation and the formation of vicious habits.
This, I think, is the one piece of baggage I have to attempt to untie and jettison from my upbringing. I'm not sure if it's endemic to Protestantism, or just my Stone-Campbell heritage. But it has sure stuck with me. I not only had a need to be sure of my salvation--I was baptized as a seven-year old and submitted to a conditional baptism as a young twenty-something--but I also had to be sure that I remained saved and had to from time to time discern where my soul was at. That is probably much closer to works righteousness than is duty.
So since duty opens the sluices, as it were, then I'll stick with duty. The rest is up to the Spirit.
Posted by Clifton at February 22, 2003 01:46 PM | TrackBack