Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Friday November 24, 2006

I read of Frank Laubach, the missionary from Princeton who over the course of his life wrote fifty books, was the confidant of presidents and through his teaching program to a Muslim group in the Philippines developed a program used to teach over sixty million people around the world to read. He became known as The Apostle of Literacy.

Mr. Laubach wrote a book titled, "Letters By A Modern Mystic," and a passage in the book talks about deep friendship:

"In defense of my opening my soul and laying it bare to public gaze in this fashion, I may say that it seems to me that we really seldom do anybody much good excepting as we share the deepest experiences of our souls in this way. It is not the fashion to tell your inmost thoughts, but there are many wrong fashions, and concealment of the best in us is wrong. I disapprove of the usual practice of "small talk" whenever we meet and of holding a veil over our souls. If we are so impoverished that we have nothing to reveal but small talk, then we need to struggle for more richness of the soul."

The practice of small talk among friends is so prevalent that to comment on it will bring a Niagara type flood to our hearts as we grasp just what is missing in our life. We American Christians are masters at the game of 'small talk.' We do not say anything that amounts to a hill of beans about ourselves and God forbid that we would spend any time really listening to someone who dared to pull back the veil of their soul. We pretend to be more interested in the Colts or whatever team you may follow. I listened as a rather shallow person spouted off that they, in their deep spirituality, had read the entire Bible, 3 times so far this year. An admirable accomplishment, but my question was met with a cold stare by the prodigious reader and an even colder one by the pastor. I simply asked, "And how did this change your life?"

I know of no speed reading program to achieve spiritual giant hood, but do earnestly believe that while we are musing on a passage, a verse or even a phrase, the Lord may bring a wee spurt of growth to our life.

Why don't Christian people 'pull back the veil' of pretense and be the transparent men and women Christ calls us to be?

Tragically, many of us who name Christ, live behind the veil so much that we begin to believe that life behind the veil is all there is, all that we can hope for. Our souls are not designed by the Lord to live a stunted existence behind a veil obscuring the pain of life, but a life that pulls back the veil and shows the pain that Christ has and is delivering us from or giving us the grace to endure joyfully.

Of course I enjoy being around people with whom I feel comfortable in pulling back the veil. More important I want to be that kind of friend to those whom I call friend. I truly struggle for more 'richness of soul.'

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2006 Use with credit.

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