I cannot deny that pain is a grace that‘s sent to help me.
If I don’t have a set of obligations that I impose upon myself, I have no intention.
The word obligation comes from Latin obligare, which means to bind towards. To go towards something and bind yourself to it.
This is closely related to the word attention, which comes from Latin attendare, to stretch to.
A human being needs to set themselves obligations, duties that they will attend to upon awakening. A ritual, a rhythm, a set of circumstances that immediately puts a demand on one’s attention and one’s life and requires one to execute a certain set of actions not because one has been told to, or ought to, but because one wishes to put oneself in a bond with oneself.
If I don’t have an obligation towards myself, I can never form an obligation towards God or towards other people.
For this reason, the first thing that one does every morning is attend to one’s obligation to God.
There is very little difference between the obligation one imposes on oneself and the obligation one owes to God; they ought to be the same thing, and one ought to understand this quite clearly through the imposition of self-discipline. This doesn’t need to be a set of superhuman tasks, but rather a routine of prayer.
Prayer outside the context of obligation is worthless. I do not pray in order to get something, but because I am obliged to pray. I must put myself under the authority of something greater than who I am and submit to it. I need to see my weakness; and I need help doing that. So the only thing I pray for is an ability to see where I am and to assume the obligations I ought to have.
Ponder that for a while.
May you be well within today.
Lee
Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.
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