Rabbit religion

Theresa has been home from the hospital for a week. She visits the doctor three times per week for six weeks of intravaeous antibiotic treatment. Further testing has indicated no definitive diagnosis on the heart valve spot.

While celebrating her homecoming at a dinner out, she asked me this: “Is your relationship with Christ based on discipline or intimacy.” This was mid-meal. Dessert came and went. No answer,,,still don’t have one.

My discipline has waned this past year – in exercise spiritually and physically. That seems to carry over into my “feltnesss” relationship with God. I’m wondering if intimacy with God has a component of discipline.

Richard Fosters says it well in his book “Celebration of Discipline”
“What happens in (the discipline of ) meditation is that we create the emotional and spiritual space which allows Christ to construct an inner sanctuary in the heart. We who have turned our lives over to Christ need to know how very much he longs to eat with us, to commune with us (Rev.3:20 ). He desires a perpetual Eucharistic feast in the inner santucty of the heart. The discipline of meditation opens the door, and although we are engaging in specific meditation exercises at specific times, the aim is to bring this living reality into all of life.”

I’d like to experience that communion more. Like our English angora runt of the litter rabbit. We put him in with his mother for solo drinking time. He clammers from one spiggot of mother’s milk to another with a voracious appetite.We just watch with amazement at his hustling antics to get his prize. I want that same kind of “hungering and thirsting for righteousness.” And that takes the discipline of creating an inner space for Christ to be communing with me  and a drawing  of the Holy Spirit.