| Becoming Human |
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For Rowan Williams Christian spirituality is profoundly concerned with what it means to be fully human in community with others. To become fully human (the "one new humanity" of Ephesians 2) requires both intentionality and commitment. He writes, "...In our feverish and impatient world, it is an important part of our Christian witness that we should be reminding people that our humanity needs time to grow, needs the time in which self-awareness, repentance and renewal can flourish. It is hard for so many to recognize that the path is a long one - that becoming human in God's way is a lifetime's matter. Yet the alternatives, so visible all around us, represent a trivialized and shallow humanity, anxious, angry and selfish, unwilling to look afresh at the self in the light of love and truth..." "[St. Benedict's] Rule's sketch of holiness and sanity puts a few questions to us, as Church and culture. It suggests that one of our main problems is that we don't know where to find the stable relations that would allow us room to grow without fear. The Church which ought to embody not only covenant with God but covenant with each other does not always give the feeling of a community where people have unlimited time to grow with each other..." Related, Dallas Willard quotes from Chambers in The Spirit of the Disciplines. Without disciplined practice, there is little likelihood that we will grow in grace. "The question of forming habits on the basis of the grace of God is a very vital one. To ignore it is to fall into the snare of the Pharisee - the grace of God is praised, jesus Christ is praised, the Redemption is praised, but the practical everyday life evades working it out. If we refuse to practice, it is not God's grace that failes when a crisis comes, but our own nature. When the crisis comes, we ask God to help us, but He cannot if we have not made our nature our ally. The practicing is ours, not God's. God regenerates us and puts us in contact with all his divince resources, but he cannot make us walk according to his will." The Psychology of Redemption, 26-27
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Dan W
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... Time, patience, healing and humanness.. great remnders love the way Williams puts it  |
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