Sometimes you read a quote that embodies what you've been feeling and haven't been able to put into words. Such was the case with this bit of insight from Thomas Merton, the late Trappist monk:
There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence [that is] activism and overwork... To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence... It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.
This will be added to the prayer/poem by the late Salvadoran Archbishop, Oscar Romero, who wrote eloquently about our role in God's redemptive activity:
A future not our own
It helps, now and then, to step back
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Both of these pieces are wonderful reminders to people like me, people who try to hoist the entire weight of human sinfulness on to their too small shoulders and end up being crushed by the burden. At the same time, they are not calls to inactivity. Rather, they recognize our limits and our need to internalize the created necessity of Sabbath rest. And that's a message I need to hear over and over again ...
