A Testament of Devotion

One of the books we have to read for VLI this quarter is A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R. Kelly. Here's what the back cover says "Plainspoken and deeply inspirational, it gathers together five compelling essays that urge us to center our lives on God's presence, to find quiet and stillness within modern life and to discover the deeply satisfying and lasting peace of the inner spiritual journey."

Each of the essays really is compelling and impactful...but the fifth one is really the one that impacted me the greatest. Below are some quotes and if you feel as busy and overwhelmed as I often do, I'm sure you'll appreciate and be convicted by these:

"We Western peoples are apt to think our great problems are external, environmental. We are not skilled in the inner life, where the real roots of our problem life. For I would suggest that the true explanation of the complexity of our program is an inner one, not an outer one. The outer distractions of our interests reflect an inner lack of integration of our own lives. We are trying to be several selves at once, without all our selves being organized by a single, mastering Life within us." (Page 91)

"We are distraught. We feel honestly the pull of many obligations and try to fulfill them all. And we are unhappy, uneasy, strained, oppressed, and fearful we shall be shallow. For over the margins of life comes a whisper, a faint call, a premonition of richer living which we know we are passing by. Strained by the very mad pace of our daily outer burdens, we are further strained by an inward uneasiness, because we have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existance, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power. If only we could slip over into that Center! If only we could find the Silence which is the source of sound! We have seen and known some other people who seem to have found this deep Center of living, where the fretful calls of life are integrated, where No as well as Yes can be said with confidence." (Page 92)

"We have not counted this Holy Thing within us to be the most precious thing in the world. We have not surrendered all else, to attend to it alone." (Page 93)

"But if we center down, as the old phrase goes, and live in that holy Silence which is dearer than life, and take our life program into the silent places of the heart, with complete openness, ready to do, ready to renounce according to His leading, then many of the things we are doing lost their vitality for us." (Page 95)

"Our real problem, in failing to center down, is not a lack of time; it is, I fear, in too many of us, lack of joyful enthusiastic delight in Him, lack of deep, deep-drawing love directed toward Him at every hour of the day and night....Religion isn't something to be added to our other duties, and thus make our lives yet more complex. The life with God is the center of life, and all else is remodelled and integrated by it. It gives the singleness of eye. The most imporant thing is not to be perpetually passing out cups of cold water to a thirsty world. We can get so fretfully busy trying to carry out the second great commandment, "Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself," that we are under-developed in our devoted love to God. But we must love God as well as neighbor. These things ye ought to have done and not to have left the other only partially done." (Page 98)

"Life from the Center is a life of unhurried peace and power. It is simple. It is serene. It is amazing. It is triumphant. It is radiant. It takes no time, but it occupies all our time. And it makes our life programs new and overcoming. We need not get frantic. He is at the helm. And when our little day is done we lie down quietly in peace, for all is well." (page 100)

Wow.....so good....so much of what I've realized and walked through these past few months. Yet...it's super easy to read this and say it's true but not really DO what Kelly is talking about. I'd love to be able to say that I live out of that centered-ness. That's what I'm attaining to.