Daily Wisdom from St. Augustine: July 20th & 21st

I have a excellent beautiful little book. It's one of those daily quotes/inspiration books. However, as one might suspect from the title of this post, it's all Augustine, all the time. It's called: Augustine Day by Day compiled and edited by John E. Rotelle, O.S.A. (Order of St. Augustine). In the words my good friend Jon would say about such things, "It's a gem." Essentially, the book provides a quote from St. Augustine followed by a prayer and they are all his words from various works, commentaries, etc. In particular the entries for this past weekend were in a way thematically connected. Go figure they're also connected to serving with JVC (note, I'm not complaining!).

The entry for July 20th, entitled Two Kinds of People reads as follows,

"Essentially, there are two kinds of people, because there are two kinds of love. One is holy the other is selfish. One is subject to God; the other endeavors to equal Him.
One is friendly; the other is envious. One wishes for the neighbor what it would wish for itself; the other wishes to subject the neighbor to itself. One guides the neighbor in the interests of the neighbor's good; the other guides the neighbor for its own interests."
-The Literal Meaning of Genesis 11, 15

 What distinction between these two kinds of love is the object. The first, which is God (which can be fulfilled through love for the other; think about Matthew 25:40 from my first post). The second, which is of the self (love corrupted by pride, noted by St. Augustine as the original sin in the Adam and Eve story). To refer to my first post where I quote St. Augustine who says in essence true happiness and satisfaction can only be found in God seems to fit in well here. The loving and pursuit of God which is holy and manifests itself in the service of others brings that fulfilling happiness. While the pursuits of loving the self which manifest themselves in the pursuit of worldly idols that we use to make ourselves "happy." Of course this happiness isn't true happiness as it is perhaps an emotive response to change. I've gained something, I've done something, I've acquired something, I've gain respect from something. All of these things, changes, are temporal. They don't exist, the enter into existence and then cease to exist. When they cease to exist, or the excitement of their initial existence (which itself is temporal) we search for something new to replace it. Whereas God is eternal and possesses none of these temporal qualities. I will stop my theological ranting on this topic here as I don't feel like representing my thesis on time. The point is JVC requires that holy and pure love from its volunteers. Not only does it require it, I will go as far to say I believe JVC gives its JVs many opportunities to explore, experiment, discover, practice and implement that kind of love. Through service, the practice and execution of its four core values: spirituality, community, simple living, and social justice.

Now the second tidbit of daily wisdom from St. Augustine was from today, the 21st (exactly two weeks from my departure). It's focus is connected to simple living and community, two of the four JVC core values and is entitled The Devil's Entry: Cupidity and Fear which reads as follows,

"Now the devil does not seduce or influence anyone unless he finds that person already somewhat similar to himself. He finds someone coveting something and cupidity opens the door for the devil's suggestion to enter.
The devil finds someone fearing something and he advises that person to flee what is feared. By these two door, cupidity and fear, the devil gains entry."
-Semon 12, 11

First off, cupidity, greed for money or possessions is the common theme here between the two daily quotes. Both relate to pride or love of the self and how that prevents us from moving towards God. With that noted how does this quote relate to simple-living and community? First off, cupidity and simple-living have a clear connection. If you take a vow of simple living you consciously remove the drive and goal to acquire material possessions for as I just said it prevents the pursuit of God. In particular to service, this obstacle to the pursuit of God manifests itself as selfish love from the first quote. The pride-based love of selfishness which inhibits one to serve others, engage in holy love, effectively. Now, granted I'm not saying it's impossible to pursue one's own interests and serve, but in the context of a year of total dedication to service, this core value and vow are extremely important.

Secondly, addressing this issue of cupidity is important for the other core value of community. For if once again there is this engagement in selfishness among a community, how can the community flourish? Community is about engagement with others through that holy love. A community supports one another, sacrifices for one another and cares for one another. That can't be effectively done in an intentional community when one is distracted by the cupidity of selfish love.

However, the connection to community is also to fear. Fear is a real thing, especially in the particular situation of living in an intentional community with a bunch of strangers you've never met. The fear factor comes from that sense of vulnerability. In order to be a community, there needs to be that vulnerability that manifests itself in trust which is not an easy thing to truly develop. Additionally fear of a new place and responsibilities of intentional communal life and the service assignment can make be a fear generator. Two points: first, the purpose of community is support. While tough at first community is there to support its members (think of the Body of Christ in the Catholic Church) though the diversity of skills, knowledge, experiences, etc. Thus the fear, the desire to run away and hide are much harder to overcome alone than in community for the most part (granted I would admit there are probably exceptions to that). Thus part of the purpose of community is to overcome those struggles together. Which leads me to my second point, spirituality. For those times where community isn't fully developed yet, spirituality, one's relationship with God, is crucial. Also spirituality as a community is also another way to overcome those challenges.

That's my reflection for the evening as the stress of needing to pack and finalize some last minute JVC things begins to set in. With only 2 weeks left I'm hoping for time to fly. As always, prayers for Jessica, Mike and myself are always appreciated as we are soon to begin our journey together with many other JV's across the country and in other parts of the world. Thanks for reading and God bless!