To what tension am I referring? It can be noticed by simply reading the titles of my last two posts: "'Defend us, O Lord, from all peril and dangers of this life'" and "Trusting God is an experience." But the tension lies more in comparing the content of these two posts than in the titles.
On the one hand, we ask the Lord to defend and protect us from life's inevitable perils and dangers and, on the other, the importance of experiencing for ourselves how, usually, rather than spare us life's difficulties and disappointments, Christ accompanies us as we face them. Of course, the biggest of these is the inevitability of death.
Isn't the Lord's death and resurrection the pattern of Christian life? Dying and rising. Christianity is a religion of paradox. The central paradox is that in order to live you must die. If you're anything like me (I hope and pray you are not!), you have to rinse and repeat with some frequency. Isn't the fruit of the first Glorious Mystery of the Holy Rosary- Christ's resurrection- faith?
Despite many repetitions, I still want what I want. While I wouldn't say I demand that God gives me what want, I can be very petulant when I don't receive what I want and especially when I don't "get" what I feel I deserve. Also, I don't hit curveballs very well. Does this mean I need more batting practice? Don't go all Nietzeschian on me!
Yet, I am very suspicious and quickly become ill-at-ease when life seems to break my way, to borrow a phrase. I am deeply aware that, in light of Jesus' teaching, many things that seem like blessings may, in the end, prove to be my undoing. Worldly prosperity is not a Gospel value. This is a hard one to choke down. Wealth and good fortune in this life won't save you but, I have it on good authority, they can easily damn you.
Familiarity with the Gospels and with the lives of the saints is so very useful, even necessary. God is good. I am not. In His goodness, by His grace, the Lord remains with me.
Resolution of the tension inherent to the life of faith is not the goal. Rather, it's learning to live this tension, which is simply to live life, experiencing how the Lord is with me in and through its perils and dangers. As the late liturgical scholar Mark Searle wrote: "Tension creates energy."
This doesn't mean being physically or mentally tense. Paradoxically, it means the opposite. Trusting God is our peace. It is true peace. In the end, the only peace. In the words of Van Morrison's question is a perennial one: "When will I ever learn?"
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