Here is my train of thought, see if you can follow –
I was on the residential part of a course on Anglican Spirituality and Practical Theology this past weekend in the unlikely venue of Beckley, West Virginia. On the course, I met a new friend who is a Ukrainian from Belarus.
I told him that the church I attended last week in Orange, Virginia prayed for his country during the prayers of the people. And in the sermon, the illustration was used of a conversation with a Ukrainian infantryman whose task it was to infiltrate behind enemy lines and return with intelligence. He was asked how he managed to sleep at night facing such unmitigated, relentless danger. His answer was simple and chilling, “I am already dead.”
This made me remember long ago reading – but not quite finishing – The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn. He similarly maintained that it was important for someone newly sent to the Soviet work camps to consider themselves dead. That this was the way to remain free and human amidst the dark hopelessness.
The caboose of this train of thought is a verse that I have been memorizing and using in prayer
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
I came to the astounding conclusion that a healthy, specifically Christian, spirituality has two parts – that are actually one thing:
I am already dead.
I am already alive.
It can sound shockingly morbid, but the Apostles taught that this is the formula, the reality. I am finding I can grow in this true paradox, and that it is the way to freedom.
Let it set your own train in motion.
