June 5, 2007

Don't Look Down

Last night I was talking with a young man who works in the construction of tall buildings, building service elevators and scaffolding. He said he was afraid of heights.

"How do you do your job?" I asked.

"I just don't look down. It's worked so far!" he said.

Later on I was thinking about how it's good advice for the spiritual life. The first step in avoiding our sins and little selfishnesses and our bad "tapes" and poor patterns of thinking is to concentrate our intention--our spiritual gaze--on the grace of God. If we "don't look down" into our occasions of sin or into our habitual spiritual pitfalls in the first place, then we will be less likely to be intimidated by them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wise words. :-)