Waking Up to a Fallen and Fragile World

Rising today, as usual, with the Morning Offering. Haze and cobwebs need to be cleared away. Breathe deeply with some initial movement designed to clear the mind, loosen the limbs. Somewhere in those initial moments, "Good morning" to Our Lord, Our Lady, St. Joseph, our Guardian Angel, our special saints. The brain kicks in now, neural pathways firing up, signals flowing freely.

On a typical morning such as this, last week, two "f''s" popped into my brain as I was waking up from slumber: fallen and fragile.

Despite my efforts each morning, the first "f" - fallen human nature-  remains a rock-solid obstacle to a good day's work and to spiritual growth. That wretched part of our human nature has an endless variety of methods to block us, even when our morning preparation goes smoothly. In fact, it's those smoothest morning preps that somehow find us flummoxed as we get up and running. Yes, folks, the devil will take our best and turn it against us.

On such a morning last week, after a good bout of prayer, meditation, study, spiritual reading to wake up the soul, and a solid work out to firm up body and mind for the work tasks to be tackled, the sweetness of that salutary combo quickly turned sour. It was as if the Devil watched, waited, and then...Gotcha!

It wasn't the work that took the hit; it was that Interior Life we try to build each day. The work got done OK, but the day was riddled with bullets of this, that, the other things that came from all directions. The usual buttoned-down order that keeps thoughts and emotions under control was flayed relentlessly until its slivered shell revealed a terrible chaos as the day progressed. 

Now, those of us whose work consists of waves of chaos wouldn't even notice what was going on. But I suggest that those of us who struggle mightily to organize our work to allow some reasonable time for prayer and recollection - two crucial building blocks of our Interior Life - would likely have been as horrified as was I. How could this happen?!!

Well, it did. And eventually the reasons became clear. And as they emerged, so did the second "f": fragile. Somewhere along the line, with all my assiduous morning preparation providing a generally rock solid foundation to commence the day's work, I must have gotten the mistaken notion that I was rock solid. I must have forgotten that my efforts were nothing more than an attempt to cooperate with God's grace, and the He was the Rock Solid One, not me.

And so I suspect He crushed that bulging boil of pride right then and there. It was as if He shouted: "You're fragile, get it?!!" (And believe me, I need yelling at sometimes when it comes to my spiritual life and the welfare of my soul.)

Conclusion: We're fallen and fragile, living in a fallen and fragile world. Fallen and fragile: I get it.

So under the circumstances, and in light of being buffeted by chaos despite my generally disciplined work habits supported by what I thought was a tough outer shell protecting my Interior Life, we resume the regular reminders of the two steps that will - to the best of our ability - carve out space for our Interior Life while allowing us to continue working for the greater glory of God with our whole heart and soul:

1. I will always take more time than is necessary to do everything. This is the way to avoid being in a hurry and getting excited.

2. Since I will invariably have more things to do than time in which to do them, and this prospect preoccupies me and gets me all worked up, I will cease to think about all I have to do, and only consider the time I have at my disposal. I will make use of that time, without losing a moment of it, beginning with the most important duties; and as regards those that may or may not get done, I shall not worry about them.

But reminders only go so far. With this, let's take stock each day how we did. we'll begin to do so next time.