Immortality

For the truth seems to me that happiness or misery beyond death, simply in themselves, are not even religious subjects at all. A man who believes in them will of course be prudent to seek the one, and avoid the other. But that seems to have no more to do with religion than looking after one's health or saving money for one's old age. The only difference is that that stakes are so very much higher. And this means that, granted a real and steady conviction, the hopes and anxieties aroused are overwhelming. But they are not on that account the more religious. They are hopes for oneself, anxieties for oneself. God is not in the centre. His is still important only for the sake of something else. Indeed such a belief can exist without a belief in God at all. Buddhists are much concerned with what will happen to them after death, but are not in any true sense, Theists.


                              -- C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Today's Readings

In today's first reading these lines in particular stuck out (Exodus 32:8-10):

They have soon turned aside from the way I pointed out to them,
making for themselves a molten calf and worshiping it,
sacrificing to it and crying out,
'This is your God, O Israel,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt!'
The LORD said to Moses,
"I see how stiff-necked this people is.
Let me alone, then,
that my wrath may blaze up against them to consume them.

A couple of ideas popped into my head as I read this: My own personal golden-calf-of-choice takes the form of self-reliance. There are certain things that a person really does need to delegate to God, but as he matures, and the realization that nine out of ten times, "If I don't do this, no one will", takes hold, these may be things may be obscured. The consequences of this are especially bad when your realize that things you instinctively take responsibility for are exactly those things for which you are the least prepared, and inclined, to do.

This gap between aptitude and responsibility often manifests itself in a despairing mindset. I think this is especially true in the case of things like evangelization. Christians are reminded in no uncertain terms that a person's conversion is the work of the Holy Spirit, not of men, and that when confronted with the task of evangelization, the proper attitude is to be open to letting the Spirit guide us. In practical terms, I think this translates to not assuming that we CANNOT prevail in the the endeavor, but rather to take how a person thinks and feels at face value, and to try to see (ourselves) how Christianity dovetails or differs with these thoughts and feelings, and to try charitably to show the person what we see.