Outwardly I tried to be supportive of the purpose for the meeting, but on the inside I was screaming, 'Who would want to sign up for this?' I was already becoming aware of CFS (Christian fatigue syndrome) in my own life and couldn't imagine willingly inflicting it on someone else.
The clarity that dawned In in this moment caused me to start being a little more honest about what my own Christian Life had been reduced to. While I was trying harder and doing more, there was a yawning emptiness beneath it all that no amount of activity, Christian or otherwise could fill. It made no difference at all that I had been a Christian all my conscious life, that I had been in vocational Christian Ministry since early adulthood or that I was busy responding to what appeared to be God given opportunities to become involved in many worthy causes. The more I refuse to acknowledge the longing for more, the deeper and wider the emptiness became until it threatened to swallow me up.......
Life in and around the Christian Community does little to help us attend to our longings, to believe that deep within there is something essential that needs to be listened to, or to offer much hope that our deepest longings could take us somewhere good. At times the deeper longing of our heart are dismissed as mere idealism. The emphasis on human depravity in many religious circles makes it hard to know if there is anything innis that can be trusted.....
Our longing for healing and transformation is met with self-help messages that leave us briefly inspired and yet burdened by the pressure of trying to fix ourselves with some new technique or skill. Our longing for a way of life that works is most often met with an invitation to more activity, which unfortunately plays right into our compulsions and the drivenness of Western culture."
- Ruth Haley Barton -
Sacred Rhythms
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