Three difficult letters · one honest machine
Easy answers jam the lock. Hold two uncomfortable truths together, and the correspondence drawer opens.
Approach the cabinetEach drawer presents a tempting pair of opposites. Move its brass dial into the narrow region where both truths remain alive. When the mechanism hums, open the drawer and receive the line hiding inside.
Drawer I · The institution
What do you do when something sacred is painfully ineffective?
“Your pain at its lack of effectiveness is a sign of your nearness to God. We help overcome this lack of effectiveness simply by suffering on account of it.”
Drawer II · The intellect
Can a formidable mind admit that understanding is not mastery?
“Don’t read [St. Thomas] with the notion that he is going to clear anything up for you. That is done by study but more by prayer.”
Drawer III · The priest
How do you revere the offering without inventing a flawless offerer?
“A man, in spite of his intellectual limitations, his neuroticism, his own lack of strength, [can] give up his life to the service of God’s people…”
Open all three drawers and the cabinet will distil your route through them into one small rule for the next difficult thing.