Four Hundred Texts on Love (Second Century) 3

7.  Whatever a man loves he inevitably clings to, and in order not to lose it he rejects everything that keeps him from it. So he who loves God cultivates pure prayer, driving out every passion that keeps him from it.

This text again brings to mind Jesus telling us that where our heart is, there our treasure is also. Do I truly love God? That’s a question that is not as easy to answer as it is to ask. I know I am entranced by this God we see in Jesus called the Christ. I know I desire to love him.

I don’t live in a neatly categorized and partitioned reality. Sometimes it seems to me that there are people who manage life by putting everything in its place. But to me, life is more an experience of where you’ve been leading to where you are with many different paths leading to where you desire to go. The person I am at any moment is a combination and intermingling of all those experiences and forces. People can’t be forced into discrete categories without caricaturing their reality.

I do understand the struggle inherent in the above. If we love God, we will work to cultivate prayer. We will work to know the one we love. But there will be other desires pulling us in different directions. And those other paths sometimes seem easier or more attractive. Jesus’ warnings seem particularly applicable when I consider that truth.

Still, as poor as it is and as badly as I keep it, I need to keep following my prayer rule as best I can. We fall and get back up. We fall and get back up. This is life.