Obscure Sacrifice

"I prefer the monotony of obscure sacrifice to all ecstasies. To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul." St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

It's an odd thing. When I was younger I used to long for - if not for fame exactly, then certainly for people to know my name. I'm coming to realise that in this business of following the Lord that's more of a disadvantage than otherwise. I'm not entirely sure why that should be, really, but certainly I'm coming to realise that there's a real hunger growing in me for obscurity. (Ironic, perhaps, that I'm posting this on a weblog, but there you go...)

I said in an earlier post that:

There is something so wholesome about obscurity in God - one of my favourite Scripture passages is Colossians 3.3, "...for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."

...We should really never long to do great things for Christ - we should long only to obey him, to do only those things our hand finds to do. The results may be unheard, almost unremembered... or they may change the world... [but] that is not up to us....

Obscurity is... nourishing, like good brown bread. When we live in obscurity, we live in wholeness, and our hearts are free to love.

Increasingly I come to understand why some of the old solitaries like St Cuthbert were so reluctant to accept high office - in Cuthbert's case, to take up the duties of a Bishop. I don't think it was just that they were unwilling to leave their hermitages or their deserts and move into the city. I think they must have known- instinctively or intellectually - that there is a secret life we have with God that we somehow risk by too close a connection with the world of synods, newspapers, public debate.

Pray for our leaders, for ++Rowan Williams, ++Katharine Schori, Pope Benedict XVI, Pastor Berten Waggoner, ++Mark Hanson... you fill in the gaps. My heart goes out to these people. Not in a million years would I want to stand in their shoes.