Balance

Keep your head in all situations, endure hardship … discharge all the duties of your ministry. 2 Timothy 4: 5

Today is the autumnal equinox, when the hours of light and dark are in equal balance. This is a good day to take stock of our lives in order to make sure that we have a God-given balance, and a deportment that reflects this.

This may seem a forlorn task, until we realise that Christ who is the perfect specimen of a balanced human being, can calm our agitated or overworked parts, heal our sick parts, and strengthen our weak parts.

Gildas, who has been nicknamed the Jeremiah of the early British church, because he was so critical of its lax members, believed in fasting and prayer; yet he was equally aware of the danger of going overboard, and losing balance:

There is no point in abstaining from bodily food if you do not have love in your heart. Those who do not fast much but who take great care to keep their heart pure (on which, as they know, their life ultimately depends) are better off than those who are vegetarian, or travel in carriages, and think they are therefore superior to everyone else. To these people death has entered through the window of their pride.
Gildas

Grant me the serenity
that comes from placing the different parts of my being
under your harmonising sway.
Today may I grow in balance