Do Not Let This World Interpret You

Under Armour store, Chicago

The prescient, prophetic, praying follower of Jesus Thomas Merton wrote: "We have a vocation not to be disturbed by the turmoil and wreckage of the great fabric of illusions." (A Book of Hours, 56)
We have a vocation... A calling. We have a calling.

From God. God calls us... ... not to be disturbed...

Be not agitated. This is about the heart.

Washing machines have "agitators." They move back and forth, back and forth, with force. They are going nowhere. They make no forward progress.

Disturbances halt forward progress. Disturbances interrupt the calling.

Jesus said, "Let not your hearts be agitated." The Greek word here is: ταράσσω,v  \{tar-as'-so}

1) to agitate, trouble (a thing, by the movement of its parts to and fro) 

1a) to cause one inward commotion, take away his calmness of  mind, disturb his equanimity 

1b) to disquiet, make restless 

1c) to stir up 

1d) to trouble 

1d1) to strike one's spirit with fear and dread 

1e) to render anxious or distressed 

1f) to perplex the mind of one by suggesting scruples or doubts
...caused by the turmoil...

Let not your hearts be agitated by the agitation. By the upheaval. By the irruptions. By the roiling waters.

Let not your hearts be arrested by the peace-thieves.
...by the wreckage...

Be not captivated by the incessant effluence of cultural carnage.

Put a compress on the bleeding media, the great fabric of illusions. The systematic sham that is "the world." With all its pretension and arrogance.

Do not let this world interpret you.
We have a calling from God to remain in Christ where agitation and turmoil are not to be found and the great fabric of systemic spell-casting is broken.

***
See my book Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.