Read Habbakuk lately?

In my continuing struggle to learn to use the new Benedictine Breviary as an aid to prayer, I found a tutorial to the Liturgy of the Hours here. However stupidly I stumble through the rite, I can offer perfect prayer when I offer to God my whole heart, mind, soul and strength. So people tell me.

I found a sentence from the prologue to the Rule of Benedict that set my heart singing,  no small achievement in these dark cold days: “We shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.”

Give me a break.

It’s 2:41 AM. I recited Vigils. How do you whump up cheerfulness when your first cup of coffee is five or six hours away?

You find treasures in the most unlikely places. Take, for example, the obscure little book of Habbakuk, hard to pronounce, hard to find, tucked among the minor prophets. It’s a quick read, but a great one. (All quotes from  NRSV.)

1. The prophet asks, O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,
   and you will not listen?
   Or cry to you “Violence!”
        and you will not save? Hab 1.2  
2. Another question: why are you “silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?” Hab 1.13
3. The righteous shall live by faith. Hab 2.4
4. But the earth will be filled
        with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
        as the waters cover the sea. Hab 2.14
5. But the LORD is in his holy temple;
        let all the earth keep silence before him! Hab 2.20
6. Though the fig tree does not blossom,
   and no fruit is on the vines;
   though the produce of the olive fails,
        and the fields yield no food;
   though the flock is cut off from the fold,
        and there is no herd in the stalls,
   yet I will rejoice in the LORD;
        I will exult in the God of my salvation. 
   God, the Lord, is my strength;
        he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
        and makes me tread upon the heights. Hab 3.17-19

 Not bad. 56 verses, at least 10 world class. Any writer would take one out of five in a heart beat.

The thing is, we’re not in a position to discern what matters or what lasts. God is.

Our job is to keep on keeping on; do the next thing; speak to the next heart that braves the open spaces in hope of connecting.

Bonhoeffer writes, never take Christian fellowship for granted.

Bill Gaither has a beautiful song that keeps running in my head (I play it while riding the recumbent bike): Loving God, loving each other, making music with my friends. (That’s God’s plan.)

Sadly, after toiling long years in the institutional church, I wonder how you tell who your real friends are.

Which brings me to Hebrews, and a verse that (to me) makes sense of my life:

Jesus suffered outside the city gate in order to sanctify the people by his own blood. Let us then go to him outside the camp and bear the abuse he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. Heb 13.12-14

Like Andy Dufresne, I am not an institutional man. I’m seeking the Body of Christ that is to come. Because what I find too often is not the body of Christ, but the corpse.

Don’t get me wrong. I wish it was otherwise.