The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back, in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.
We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us. It is the difference between paint which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through. He never talked vague, idealistic gas. When He said, ”˜Be perfect,’ He meant it. He meant that we must go in for the full treatment. It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder – in fact, it is impossible. It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.
–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (Macmillan,1943), Chapter Eight
No doubt C.S. Lewis meant this to be something for us to consider in our personal journey to become like Christ. However, it is interesting to read it in terms of a dioceses or the church’s personal growth into its full stature. How can the/a church become what Christ is calling it to be unless it truly gives up what it is to become something more. Surely this is possible. Look at the church in Corinth. They grew into something more. My prayer this night will be for the diocese of SC. I have no doubt that whether they go or stay, they will continue to grow into His likeness. The question is, is her mission to hold out in TEC, perhaps hoping to be a track 1 diocese, if that is even possible one day? Or is it to join ACNA and help bring together the confederation of churches into a more cohesive unit and hope that they will one day be admitted into the Anglican Communion? Or is there some third option God will present them. Perhaps approaching the presiding bishop again about a primatial vicar. God be with them in this trying hour.