From Br. Joseph —
At the still point of the turning world…
…at the still point, there the dance is.
(T.S. Eliot)
From the book God Calling, today’s entry (Nov. 27) reads:
Not our wills but Thine, O Lord.
Man has so misunderstood Me in this. I want no will laid grudgingly upon My Altar. I want you to desire and love My Will, because therein lies your happiness and the Spirit-rest.
When you feel that you cannot leave the choice to Me then pray, not to be able to accept My Will, but to know and love Me more. With that knowledge, and the Love, will come the certainty that I know best, and that I want only the best for you and yours.
How little those know Me who think I wish to thwart them. How often I am answering their own prayers in the best and quickest way.
According to Peter Kreeft in Three Philosophies of Life, there are only three ways to influence other people: pushing, carrying, and drawing. By force or by fear, you can push another person to do something against their will. You can carry a person along, but this means they are passive and you end up doing the task for them. And finally, “you can draw them, attract them, motivate them to move toward you by the magnetism of desire.”
Only in drawing is there freedom. The drawer is free for he has the initiative. The drawn is equally free with equal value to respond. “To be drawn is as free a choice as to draw. To come is as free as to say, ‘Come’.”
And so in Biblical language, God draws us to His altar to lay down our will to be joined with His. In other words, it becomes a dance—us following God’s lead through the dips, swirls, and sashays of life.
If we feel forced—pushed or carried—then it is not a free choice. It is not dancing. and that is not what God wants or is doing.
You have the choice, but so does God. God has chosen to draw you to Him. God calls you to be His dance partner.
Pray to know God’s love more so that you will be drawn to Him, and to the Dance.
How can we know the dancer from the dance? (W.B. Yeats)
Our Lady of Mercy, pray for us…