“We are not perfectly free until we live in pure hope. For when our hope is pure, it no longer trusts exclusively in human and visible means, nor rests in any visible end. He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination." (Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island)
Common sense has value in that it allows us to be functional human beings. It keeps us grounded in reality. Yet, it can also be restrictive and binding--keeping us tethered to our earthly perspectives--preventing us from reaching for enlightenment. Common sense tells us to depend on the visible and the tangible--in what we can control or influence. Yet, many of us sense that there is something beyond what our natural human abilities can grasp. We call this supernatural power--GOD. Trusting in this invisible, unmanageable God is difficult. So we revert back to the familiar--we rely on our common sense and go back to depending on our own resources and abilities.
Worldly wisdom compels us to look out for ourselves--while Christ advocates sacrifice, poverty, humility, and loving others. A shrewd person would call this gullible. Experience has shown us that even our closest loved ones can be untrustworthy. Does it not seem irrational, then, to put our trust in a mysterious God? Common sense tells us that prayer is unreliable; sometimes we get what we ask for, and sometimes we don’t. Wouldn’t it be more logical to take matters into our own hands and make things happen?
Trusting in God requires a certain amount of detachment from our common sense. We may have to shut off some of our natural senses in order to access our supernatural senses. Some of us are not willing to make this leap--until we have no other choice. Everything we hold as self-evident has to come crumbling down before we can let go of the familiar and place our trust in an unseeable, unknowable, uncontrollable God.
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