Prisoners of Ourselves

When I got back home, I had various issues of magazines to peruse. In the August 9 issue of The Christian Century, I found this excellent thought offered by Rowan Williams:

"Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams recalled for the Guardian (July 8) how he once was an angst-ridden young man who worried about whether he was suffering enough or was compassionate enough. But then Mary Clare Millia, a Catholic nun, said to him, 'You don't have to suffer for the sins of the world, darling. It's been done.' If we're not preoccupied with justifying ourselves, said Williams, then we can focus on other things and can even afford to be wrong. 'Jesus is the human event that reverses the flow of human self-absorption.'"

It is too easy to be self-absorbed, and here is a prayer that helps us realize this:

O God, bring new life
where we are worn and tired;
new love
where we have turned hard-hearted;
forgiveness
where we have wounded;
and the joy and freedom of your Holy Spirit
where we are prisoners of our selves.

~~John L. Bell


Bell, John L. The Book of a Thousand Prayers. Ed. Angela Ashwin. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. 138.