Extracts from The Divinisation of Our Activities: Divine Milieu by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Anyone who devotes himself to human duty according to the christian formula, though outwardly he may seem to be immersed in the concerns of the earth, is in fact, down to the depths of his being, a man of great detachment. Of its very nature work is a manifold instrument of detachment, provided a man gives himself to it faithfully and without rebellion. In the first place it implies effort and a victory over inertia. And then, however interesting and intellectual it may be (and the more intellectual it is, the truer this becomes), work is always accompanied by the painful pangs of birth. Men can only escape the terrible boredom of monotonous and commonplace duty to find themselves a prey to the inner tension and the anxieties of , creation . To create, or organise, material energy, or truth, or beauty, brings with it an inner torment which prevents those who face its hazards from sinking into the quiet and closed-in life wherein grows the vice of self-regard and attachment (in the technical sense). An honest workman not only surrenders his calm and peace once and for all, but must learn continually to jettison the form which his labour or art or thought first took, and go in search of new forms. To pause, so as to bask in or possess results, would be a betrayal of action. Over and over again he must go beyond himself, tear himself away from himself, leaving behind him his most cherished beginnings. And on that road, which is not so different from the royal road of the Cross as might appear at first sight, detachment does not consist only in continually replacing one object with another of the same order-as miles,- on a flat road, replace miles. By virtue of a marvellous mounting force contained in things (and which will be analysed in greater detail when we consider the spiritual power of matter), each reality attained and left behind gives us access to the discovery and pursuit of an ideal of higher spiritual content. Those who spread their sails in the right way to the winds of the earth will always find themselves borne by a current towards the open seas. The more nobly a man wills and acts, the more avid he becomes for great and sublime aims to pursue. He will no longer be content with family, country and the remunerative aspect of his work. He will want wider organisations to create, new paths to blaze, causes to uphold, truths to discover, an ideal to cherish and defend. So, gradually, the worker no longer belongs to himself. Little by little the great breath of the universe has insinuated itself into him through the fissure of his humble but faithful action, has broadened him, raised him up, borne him on. It is in the Christian, provided he knows how to make the most of the resources of his faith, that these effects will reach their climax and their crown. As we have seen: from the point of view of the reality, accuracy and splendour of the ultimate end towards which we must aim in the least of our acts, we, DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, ARE THE MOST FAVORED OF MEN. The Christian knows that his function is to divinise the world in Jesus Christ. In him, therefore, the natural process which drives human action from ideal to ideal and towards objects ever more internally coherent and comprehensive in their embrace, reaches-thanks to the support of Revelation-its fullest expansion. And in him, consequently, DETACHMENT THROUGH ACTION should produce its maximum effectiveness. And this is perfectly true. The Christian as we have described him in these pages, is at once the most attached and the most detached of men. Convinced in a way in which the worldly cannot be of the unfathomable importance and value concealed beneath the humblest convinced as the hermit of the worthlessness of any success which is envisaged only as a benefit to himself (or even a general one) without reference to God. IT IS GOD AND GOD ALONE whom he pursues through the reality of created things. For him, interest lies truly in things, but in absolute dependence upon Gods presence in them. The light of heaven becomes perceptible and attainable to him in the crystalline transparency of beings. But he wants only this light, and if the light is extinguished, whether because the object is out of its true place, or has outlived its function, orhas moved itself, then even the most precious substance is only ashes in his sight. Similarly, within himself and his most personal development, it is not himself that he is seeking, but that which is greater than he, to which he knows that he is destined. In his own view he himself no longer counts, no longer exists; he has forgotten and lost himself in the very endeavor which is making him perfect. It is no longer the atom which lives, but the universe within it. Not only has he encountered God in the entire field of his actions in the perceptible world, but in the course of this first phase of his spiritual development, the divine milieu which has been uncovered absorbs his powers in the very proportion in which these laboriousIy rise above their individuality.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Mar 2014 00:57:18 +0000
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