The cynic in me is always suspicious about people with overwhelming reputations. Despite myself, I’ve found that “Lord Teach Us” by Willimon and Hauerwas is incredibly insightful, prophetic and accessible. Here’s another example:
“We wish that the prayer said something like, ‘Teach us to forgive others, so that we might also be forgiven.’ But it doesn’t. The prayer knows that we would love to conceive of ourselves first as forgivers. This would leave us in control. From our great store of righteousness, we could reach out in love to those who had injured and wronged us. No! First the prayer asks us to as to be forgiven. That takes us out of control. It means that we are suddenly at the mercy of someone else’s account of our lives rather than out own.”
“Prayer is the essential practice, the gift that God has given us to help us rediscover the joy of being a creature, of being out of control. … We discover our true nature by learning to accept God’s good gift without regret. This may sound too easy, but it is anything but that.”
“To reach out for forgiveness means that I am not the sole author of my life story. Noting assaults the contemporary understanding of our lives more than to ask for forgiveness. … To do so is to learn the painful but liberating truth that our lives are not our own.”
Peace.
Jim
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