Robb Schiller

A friend sent me an email with an excerpt from a book. A book you should read.  A book I’ve been intend­ing to read for a while now that I absolutely have to pick up now. Abba’s Child by Bren­nan Manning.

There was one phrase in this part of the book that really stuck out.

Sus­tain­ing our­selves in the aware­ness of the present risen­ness of Jesus is a costly deci­sion that requires more courage than intelligence.

That makes my bones shake. Here is the rest of the excerpt, I’ll just let what Brennan’s words do what they are intended to do.

Socrates said, “The unaware life is not worth liv­ing.”  Sus­tain­ing our­selves in the aware­ness of the present risen­ness of Jesus is a costly deci­sion that requires more courage than intel­li­gence.  I notice a ten­dency in myself to sink into unaware­ness, to enjoy some things alone, to exclude Christ, to hug cer­tain expe­ri­ences and rela­tion­ships to myself.  Exac­er­bated by what some­one has called “the agnos­ti­cism of inat­ten­tion” — the lack of per­sonal dis­ci­pline over media bom­bard­ment, shal­low read­ing, ster­ile con­ver­sa­tion, per­func­tory prayer, and sub­ju­ga­tion of the senses — the aware­ness of the risen Christ grows dim.  Just as the fail­ure to be atten­tive under­mines love, con­fi­dence, and com­mu­nion in a human rela­tion­ship, so inat­ten­tion to my true hid­den self with Christ in God obscures aware­ness of the divine rela­tion­ship.  As the old proverb goes, “Thorns and this­tles choke the unused path.”  A once ver­dant heart becomes a dev­as­tated vineyard.

When I shut Jesus out of my con­scious­ness by look­ing the other way, my heart is touched by the icy fin­ger of agnos­ti­cism.  My agnos­ti­cism does not con­sist in the denial of a per­sonal God; it is unbe­lief grow­ing like lichen from my inat­ten­tion to the sacred pres­ence.  The way I spend my time and money and the way I inter­act with oth­ers rou­tinely tes­ti­fies to the degree of my aware­ness or unawareness.

In The Road Less Trav­eled Scott Peck wrote, “With­out dis­ci­pline we can solve noth­ing.  With only some dis­ci­pline we can solve some prob­lems.  With total dis­ci­pline we can solve all problems.”