The Long Obedience I'm In

         At the Orientation for New Staff in June, each of the 10 days we were given a free book. It was like Christmas every day! One of the books, A Long Obedience In the Same Direction by Eugene Peterson, caught my attention, but I didn't start reading it until yesterday. You know how it goes, you could be not in the mood at one moment, the next it looks uninteresting, and the next you realize you're still in the middle of 4 other books. So it took me until yesterday. But ever since I decided to go on staff back in January, it has seemed like quite a bit has been coming against me in the spiritual sense, and my faith has felt severely crippled. But have you ever started reading a book, and there is one line that just makes you start crying? Well, that's what happened when I read this line:

        "There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclinations to sign up for a long apprenticeship in what earlier generations of Christians called holiness."

         I'm not entirely sure why this line really got to me, but I think it was the Holy Spirit's way of reminding me that I am in the process of holiness, that I need to stick with it even when it gets really difficult, and that it really is a long obedience. (Which actually is a quote from Nietzsche, and I always respected Christians who read openly God-hating people like Nietzsche and see where God is in the things they say)

        Later in the chapter, Peterson quotes William Faulkner when he talks about the concept of the journey of the Christian life, and how monuments in our life may not be the best description of important points in our walk. Faulkner says: "A monument only says 'At least I got this far,' while a footprint says, 'This is where I was when I moved again.'" I think this is a footprint moment.