I came to love You late, O Beauty so ancient and new; I came to love You late. You were within me and I was outside, where I rushed about wildly searching for You like some monster loose in Your beautiful world. You were with me, but I was not with You. You called me, You shouted to me, You wrapped me in Your splendor, You sent my blindness reeling. You gave out such a delightful fragrance, and I drew it in and came breathing hard after You. I tasted and it made me hunger and thirst; You touched me, and I burned to know Your peace.”
~Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus… Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as weapons for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace… What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
~paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Romans 6
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Oh beloved, it is true.
A dear brother of mine said one time: “We get hungry for what we eat.” True this is. But hunger can be deceiving. Just because we start wanting something more, does not mean that it is going to fill us up. And it is in this quandary, were we find the truth of our inability to trust our flesh.
There is, within us, a tipping point in our souls. On one side of the fulcrum: death, self, flesh, endless lusts and cravings. On the other: life, spirit, wholeness and a healthy and ever-growing appetite for things noble and true and just and pure and lovely and honorable and worthy of praise.
Now, both sides of the balance gain weight as we feed them. And the temptation is to believe that there are two equally able and completely competitive interests at hand. The legend is oft-told of the two wolves that live inside a man – and that the one who succeeds is the one we feed the most. But, this is but another lie from one side of the fulcrum.
Read the passage. Slowly. Let it sink in. Then, do a simple application to what our existence in this plane is like. What is death? Death is an end of things. Death is a terminus to improvement or growth. And without resurrection (not just resuscitation) death only leads to worse things than we can imagine.
So, for us to feed the putrid, fleshly old man on the one side of the fulcrum is only going to accelerate our entry into the grave and terminate our hope. It really is a slippery slope, and this fool of a writer has always had a problem with understanding why so many in philosophy are willing to call the argument from a slippery slope a logical fallacy. If you have ever been on one of these disastrous curves of existence (i have), then you may be willing to agree.
But wait a minute. What is this death with a resurrection? Oh! Here is the answer we have been looking for. For here, death is a solution, and a ticket to the awakening – and fulfillment – of the nearly infinite appetite we have been given for pleasure. For now, this is death with a Guide, Who has already been through this dark place and come out completely victorious into Life without end.
Can we see it?
The two deaths are not equal. Though, they do have a profound similarity. One, the death IN the flesh, is a terminus that cuts us off from the possibility of experiencing Real Life: ever. The other, this death TO the flesh that is killing us anyway, creates an impassable point back to this old way of existing, and in its putrid place, comes the fresh air of Living in the spirit.
Yes, we do get hungry for what we eat. If we pursue the lusts of our flesh, we will become more and more and more inclined to follow that path. But, haven’t we tried that before? And, didn’t it almost kill us? However, if we pursue just one thing: reckoning true that that death has already been avoided FOR us, in Christ – and then allowing HIS death to overwhelm our impending doom – we find that we are truly headed in the right direction on the other side of the fulcrum.
So, are you finding yourself trying things, and only getting hungrier? It can happen. Time to get back on the other side slippery slope. You (and i) cannot do this – it takes SomeOne Who has already died to pull you back to the side of everlasting and ever-growing Life.
Tonight is your night beloved. Time to die, that you might live. If you keep living the way you are doing it, you will die in a way that has no return.
Gluttony and satiety in food produce defiled lust, while free association with women enflames the fire of lusts … At the time of struggle with defilement, punish your thoughts with lack of nourishment, so that you will think not of defilements, but of hunger, and reject the invitation to go visiting.
~St. Nilus of Sinai
