Written by Dallas Willard (1935-2013), an American philosopher known for his works on Christian spiritual formation. This is an excerpt from his book “The Spirit of the Disciplines.”
We must at some point stop looking for new information or social arrangements or religious experiences that will draw off the evil in the world at large, abolish war, hunger, oppression, and so forth, while letting us continue to be and to live as we have since Adam. This is the illusion of our age, the Holy Grail of modernity, a pleasant dream in the sleep of secularism. The monstrous evils we deplore are in fact the strict causal consequences of the spirit and behavior of “normal” human beings following generally acceptable patterns of life. They are not the result of strange flukes, accidental circumstances, or certain especially mad or bad individuals. The tyrants, satanic forces, and oppressive practices of this world play upon our “merely decent” lives as a master organist dominates his or her instrument but is wholly powerless without it … Establishing the rights of labor and of the various ethnic groups, shifting ownership of the means of production from private to public hands, outlawing various types of discrimination, governmental outlays for welfare and education, and so on, will certainly make a difference – good or bad—but they will not eliminate greed, loneliness, resentment, sexual misery and harm, disappointment with one’s lot in life, hunger for meaning and recognition, fear of sickness, pain, old age and death, or hatred of those of other cultures. They will not bring us to love and accept ourselves and our neighbors or enable us to enjoy our lives with peace of mind …The highest education, as well as the strictest doctrinal views and religious practice, often leave untouched the heart of darkness from which the demons come to perch upon the lacerated back of humankind. Fine laws of the highest social intent and widespread confession of the new birth or of firsthand contact with God still leave an awesome lack in national and international affairs or in the quality of community and family life…We have one hope for dealing with the world’s problems. That is the person and gospel of Jesus Christ, living here and now, in people who are his by total identification found through the spiritual disciplines.
Prayer:
Today’s prayer is from an ancient collect (short general prayers used in Christian liturgy) from the 5th century.
Almighty God, you fill all things with your presence. In your great love, keep us near you this day. Grant that in all our ways and doings we may remember that you see us, and may always have the grace to know and perceive what things you would have us do, and give us strength to do the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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