Sue Agnew

Dear friend,

I agreed to write today's meditation before I had read the prescribed readings, and when I did I couldn't imagine what to say about any of them. Then I saw with relief that it was also a day dedicated to C.S. Lewis, and was sure that there would be something more approachable. Turns out the Epistle for C.S. Lewis is the same as the regular Daily Office Epistle (1 Peter 1: 3–9). Although that made it seem like the imperative choice, it's still not easy.

In it, Peter is offering “a living hope” to followers who are “for a little while” suffering “various trials” by promising them “a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” It seems to me they might have considered it faint comfort in light of the challenges of their real-time lives in first-century Asia Minor.

November 22 is one of those indelible dates for which many of us can recall exactly what we were doing when we heard the news. For me, and others in my age group, it was probably our first experience with sudden tragedy, inexplicable violence, senselessness, incredulity, inconceivability.

It is so difficult to understand why bad things happen and so challenging to hold onto a faith that offers only obscure hope.

A year ago I began trying to meditate. Late fall was a particularly fraught time, with a lot of tension and uncertainty and just plain waiting for things to shake out. In one of his daily messages, the Rt. Rev'd Steven Charleston (a retired Episcopal Bishop and in addition a Choctaw elder) suggested taking some time “to seriously confront fear in your life and feel its power over you diminish.” By following standard meditation methodology of sitting quietly with closed eyes and breathing in and out with awareness, we were to open our hearts and receive the feeling of a sacred presence as though being bathed in light. I’ve tried to meditate in the past and couldn’t get out of my head and into it, and as I attempted this practice I again was frustrated finding myself thinking extraneous thoughts and having to pull myself back to concentrating on the breath. Then an experienced friend explained “Pulling yourself back to the breath IS the practice.”

In the same way, most people don’t suddenly (or ever?) achieve having an unshakeable faith. That’s why we read scripture and meditations on scripture, attend church, talk with others, and pray. It happens even to the best of us, including C. S. Lewis, who said “Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.”

Yours in Christ,

Sue Agnew