I sit here in the morning God-like silence, in the green morning glow of the high Bakony mountains, and I myself again practice silence and prayer therapy in the magnificently shining chlorophyll church.
Under the living church dome towering over me with green, yellow, vivid forest colors, I first thank the Creator Father for the beauty of light and fragrance of the summer forest, then, settling on a cool rock, I start reading the Word.
We are pressed everywhere, BUT not pressed, we doubt, BUT we do not despair, we are persecuted, BUT not forsaken; they copy it, BUT we don't take it away; (2 Corinthians 4:8-9).
Hard Word. I'm starting to remember. Above all, to the apostle Paul, his words, his confessions, the special heavenly and earthly career of the apostle of the peoples. And how the DE turns took place in his life. Not the defiance, nor the constant protesting, debating But his words. But DE miracles of divine possibilities experienced in human impossibilities. The wonders of survival, modus vivendi.
It was not Paul's wisdom that invented these DEs, but Jesus Christ gave him the experiences, of which he then formulated his faith-knowledge messages that made life's paradoxes bearable and even victorious as a religious summation.
To all of us who, compared to what he had to endure, we are at most whiny little children who get upset at every scratch. We often react to the difficulties of our times and circles as if fateful tragedies were happening to us. With exaggerations. Narcissistically, with an almost morbid hypersensitivity. Because we didn't really, deeply and compassionately look into the mirror of suffering, which would also correct our petty complaints.
The ancients still knew - what a pity that even Latin was left out of the national education plan, depriving the rising generations of basic knowledge that trains the spirit and soul - so the ancients put it this way: salvifici doloris, salvific suffering. Since they were aware that the palm tree grows under a burden, and that the sufferings of others, such as the Christian martyrs, are our burdens, the study of this can prepare us to set the right proportions of suffering and trials.
During immeasurable trials, pitfalls, and hostility, Pál experienced that no matter how self-confident and strong-willed we are, the ground can slip out from under us in a matter of seconds. Not only if this DE means Jesus Christ himself, Who lives in us by faith. And He represents the modus vivendi from within, the only realistic chance and guarantee of survival. Solus Christus - as taught by our reformers.
And just as the fourfold BUT finds its beginning and purpose from Him and in Him: anxiety from the outside, doubt from the inside, intellectual or zeitgeist-dictated ideological error, physical persecution, exhaustion, depression, or material, existential scarcity that actually brings you to the floor are all tolerable and processable, IF We always carry the death of Jesus in our bodies so that the life of Jesus can also be seen in our bodies (2 Corinthians 4:10).
The man of faith, rise forever Jancsi - Jesus in our personal passion story
In the world of our childhood games, the joy was not the expensive artificial PlayStations, but the symbolic toys, which were later interpreted as such. For example, the now almost unknown humming snail, which could be physically set in motion again and again, which signaled that the external, upper resource is not in the toy itself. In the same way, the power of our Lord keeps our lives moving, spinning, rotating from above and from within. Or the kelj up jancsi, which, no matter how we pushed it to the ground, it was not us, but it was the winner, because it always bounced back to a standing position. Because someone edited it that way.
The apostle Paul was also able to put together an amazing catalog of suffering and trials to prove what a superpower was in the DE that Jesus Christ meant to him. Also in this letter, he prepares the balance of his passion story himself. Here it is: "I was imprisoned several times, I suffered many beatings, I was often in mortal danger. Five times I received almost forty strokes of the stick from the Jews, three times I was caned, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, one night and one day I tossed on the waves of the sea.
I was often on the road, in danger on rivers, in danger among robbers, in danger among my people, in danger among pagans, in danger in the city, in danger in the wilderness, in danger at sea, in danger among false brothers..." (2 Corinthians 11:23-26).
He certainly experienced that personal destiny is often similar to a cracked reed and a flickering candlestick (Isaiah 42:3), but if the eternal BUT is hidden in it, it will not crack, it will not be extinguished.
He experienced that our personal lives are fragile earthenware, full of cracks and scratches covered in wrinkles over decades. Yet it does not break, because it is carried by the treasure inside, the faith in Jesus Christ. He experienced that his life, our life, is like a tent tarpaulin, but it does not collapse unless its pillar is faith and the cross of the living Jesus Christ.
For the birth of our Jesus-shaping DEs
How good it would be if we could realize in the summer God's silence during our so many defiant and angry, pointlessly rebellious and protesting DEs: immeasurable destiny energy, a waste of personal spiritual and physical strength, even a waste of existence without hope in Christ. Christ's YES, He Himself can bring you out of impossible situations. Christ is still the basis and inexhaustible resource of the culture of life and survival. Without it, our human DEs can cause self-digestion, self-immolation, and self-destruction.
W. Barclay aptly put it this way in his commentary on the New Testament, known worldwide in Christian circles, which is full of life examples, following Paul. There is no crown without a cross. The ethics and life-sustaining culture of survival and hope begins with DE spoken in a meek and humble, God-observant spirit. With the living Jesus Christ, the personal body and soul guard of our lives, his body and soul guard service. He who builds on Őre does not build his life, his family, and those entrusted to him on sand. No matter how you put it, a
Evil remains with us even in the digital age of MűIntelligence (for me it's more art than artificial).
More and more refined! Existential risk that makes DE indispensable. As Tibor Fábián, a reformed pastor from Transylvania, alluded to in his excellent short novel, the indestructible and anti-human destructive virus called Rutacca (bad) has an amazing mutational ability. It is also capable of being transposed from a person to the material, digital world of today:
"As if a long, illuminated creeper was moving silently towards its destination..." (Monsters of Guyana).
Because there is evil-silence and there is God-silence. And there is also the serious freedom of choosing between the two.
In the beautiful green chlorophyll glow of Bakony, which shapes the church dome, I thank you, Lord, that in the midst of so many DEs, all my DE thoughts, DE prayers, DE silences began to shape You over time. Grant it, Lord, let as many people as possible have a DE chosen with a good decision throughout our Carpathian country - for the culture of life, hope and survival. I pray for this even in the silence of the green-domed, chlorophyll-frescoed forest.
Dr. Lajos Békefy
Featured Image: Pixabay
