Without God our nature is to follow the path of least resistance. Does it take an army to follow the path of Truth and Light? No, it does not take an army to stay Right on the path; but it surely helps. As humans, we need to fight temptation at every turn. It is a constant struggle between love and war. I am of Scottish descent through the Clan Gunn. Our clan motto is “Aut Pax Aut Bellum”. Translated that is “Either Love Or War”. So I am quite familiar with that struggle. Today, we are going to visit that struggle in Petal Six:
Lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
To acquire the power of the final sequence of Our Lord’s Prayer, we need to define these terms: sin, temptation and evil. Let us begin with evil; for it is the basis of both sin and temptation. Evil takes on many forms, uses many words and coops a lot of the media we use today.
We are always being asked to define evil. All we have to do is to listen to or to read the headlines over the last two weeks. Evil has been debated by scholars and theologians for centuries. It is not the purpose of this writing to go into the depths of scholastic and theological discourses. We want to focus on what defines evil in our lives. Kathleen McGowan reminded me of a passage I was given when I was researching my thesis on Cyclical Romances:
That which keeps us from
Accomplishing our mission
And fulfilling our promise
To Our Father in Heaven
Is defined as evil
Evil is not that horned beast standing in a sea of fire holding a trident. It is within our heart. It is the failure to stay on the path of our own nature and the path to the Truth. It is the path of least resistance.
I am sure if you have any history in a church, you know of the seven cardinal sins: ego, anger, envy, complacency, greed, indulgence and lust. How many of you recognize any one of these leaking into to your life on a daily basis? When was the last time you saw something you wanted that cause you a desire and to say to yourself, “Oh, that would be nice, someday?” When was the last time you saw someone sleeping on a sidewalk, saw someone struggling with a disability, or someone being abused due to their ethnic background; and then went on about your daily routine and did nothing about them?
In just two sentences, we have witnessed two of these sins, ego and envy. You can see how easily evil can seep into your daily lives. It takes effort to avoid them. As I mentioned previously, I live in South Dakota, a very rural state with a total population of less than a million people. Farming affects the daily lives of everyone, including those who live in the major population areas of Sioux Falls and Rapid City. I’m sure at one time or another you have seen photos of row crops all lined up in straight rows. With farmers farming hundreds if not thousands of acres at time, do you know how that farmer gets the row so straight? In today’s technological age, it is done with GPS. Before, there were manual methods. The farmer marks the beginning and the ending of each row. As he begins each row, he keeps his eye on the marker at the end of the row. The farmer knows that there will be rocks and other obstacles that will veer the tractor from the keeping the straight line. He also knows that if he keeps his eye on the end of the row, he will automatically do small course corrections along the way to keep the row straight.
Okay you live in a big city and may have never walked through the mud and manure of a farm; and you are asking how this makes a difference in your life. Use an analogy that fits your circumstances; such as driving a car, steering a boat, preparing up through presentation a proposal or speech. Let’s look at another evil that can seep into your daily lives. When was the last time you got angry?
This is an easy one to recognize. All one has to do is to look at the news headlines for the past year in the U.S. I am not taking sides of the political discussion; however I am going to use show how Anger can have an unholy effect on a person. The Republican candidate won the election; and the Democratic candidate lost. Of course there is going to be immediately angst from the losing party. Looking at the news, this angst has been going on for 365 days with no end in sight. The ones on the losing side are still angry. They scream, they yell, they demonize the winning side on a daily basis. Those who are doing most of the public debating show the physical signs of how far they are letting it take over their lives. Some have trouble breathing, other can be seen with veins popping in their necks or foreheads, and others continue to cry to grieve. There are some who are taking to the streets, destroying cars, store windows, buildings and just recently one attacked a standing U.S. Senator at his home breaking six of his ribs. This is letting the evil of anger rule your life. Who wants to be around someone who is hot that angry.
Sometime we can turn anger into something positive. We all experience anger. The key is how release that anger. This last summer, I got angry at several drivers who acted extremely stupidly. I had a good case of road rage. I bottled it up; because I was driving a three-thousand pound vehicle at 70 mph. And, that could be lethal for both them and me. I waited until I got home. Not wanting for my lovely bride to become the recipient of that anger, I excused myself to our yard. I mowed the front and the back twice each from different angles and then I went to our raised garden. I turned over the soil between the rows, picked weed, thinned out the carrots and radishes and then sprayed for insects using a biodegradable insect repellant. I didn’t want to harm any bees or other pollinating insects. Two and one-half hours later, my anger was quelled and my yard looked really nice. This fall I harvested 50 lbs. of tomatoes; and had such a wealth of hot peppers and kale, I had to give some of them away. The one thing I did was to avoid my woodshop. There were just too many sharp objects that I could have hurt me. This is but one way to channel your anger into something positive.
In the past month we have all read or hear of the dark path that greed and lust can lead. Just keep in mind that greed and lust in our lives can hurt to the core those who we love. Look what it has done to the careers of Weinstein, Spacy and those involved with the Uranium One deal.
This leaves us with complacency; a smugness that leads to apathy, indifference, lethargy, laziness, unconcern dispiritedness, and lack of concern. Such smugness aids and abets the evil that we have promised Our God to eradicate. This can be the worst of all the cardinal sins. It is insidious and worm its way into your very essence and it is quite contagious and pervasive. If you try to please everyone; you will end up pleasing no one!
As we embark upon our mission, there will be all sorts of temptations. Those purveyors of evil are very good at lying and deceiving. We must keep our eye on the target in order to avoid the pitfalls put in our way to distract and disorient us from God’s path. Those with eyes that see and ears that hear must be ever vigilant, with God’s help. We need to pray and pray often.
This is the end of our lessons on how to meditate on the Lord’s Prayer. Print yourselves copies and use them as guides. Each of us has a different promise and mission. We all need to speak with Our God and Jesus told us this is how we should be doing it. Who am I to deny the word of Our Lord through Jesus of Nazareth? Mary Magdalene, lawful wife of Jesus has been begging me to reach out to you. God gave me the written word to use. Both Jesus and Mary have encouraged my writing of murder mysteries. The evil people of this world do not look like the sharp toothed, horned monsters we see in the movies and cartoons. They look just like us. They act just like us, most of the time. They have job they go to, just like us. That is why we must constantly reflect on the prayer Jesus gave us nearly two-thousand years ago:
‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come, your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.'”
6 Petal Rose 