RIGHT :: Five-Minute Friday
Here's one of the beautiful locations Jesus invited me to sit this summer to ask Him questions about what's right.
Welcome to a new weekly feature, Five-Minute Friday. For the remaining weeks of Ordinary Time, I'll be sharing a five-minute written reflection on one word I've been pondering. (I'm literally setting a stopwatch for five minutes so that I can just write already!)
From the beginning, I've intended to share new writing with you here. The most accessible patron tier is called "Stories" for a reason!
At the same time, it's been a brutal eighteen months for my creative brain. The combination of global crisis and suffering and some extraordinary suffering within our family has pinned me down to the level of "groanings that can not be uttered" more days than not.
Still, I can't not write. And so, I begin again. Thanks for being a listening community and a safe place to offer stories from my everyday experiences and epiphanies. I'm grateful for your companionship.
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Right
A few weeks ago I wrote a reflection on the Sunday lectionary readings for our Diocese. The New Testament lesson included the Apostle Paul's classic conundrum: I can't do what I want to do, but somehow manage to do what I don't want to do. (Romans 8:15)
Can I get a witness?
I am a woman who desperately wants to do, think, and love what is right. In my innermost self, I'm energized by the desire to know what's the truest true and the realest real and to orient my life to that reality with consistency and integrity.
Like Paul, much of the time, I can only muster "So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand." (Romans 7:21)
Has it ever been harder to know what is the truest truth and the realest real? Not in my lifetime.
It's never felt harder for me to understand how to understand, love, and do what is right. Yet it remains my deepest desire to do so. This is an exhausting tension and I know that many of you feel it too.
The desire is good even when we lack the will and the capacity to make it so. Especially when we know our weakness, we're invited to not grow weary in the desire. In the fatigue and confusion around and within us, we're invited to live into the outburst of freedom the Apostle Paul describes in Romans 8:1. With deep gladness, we claim the promise only available to us because Christ fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law: “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
We are not condemned and this frees us to not condemn others. We hold onto the One who always knows and does what is right and count on the strong and kind heart of Jesus to cover us all.
May the peace of Christ guard you against all condemnation, friends. Hallelujah!
I'd love to hear your reflections from this week. Feel free to respond to the word "right" or just share your own experiences and epiphanies.
*This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!