Christian Spontaneity

Just a short quote this morning, that I came upon last night:

In his book The Beatitudes: Soundings in Christian Tradition, Simon Tugwell uses the term Christian spontaneity in this way:

It does not, perhaps, in the last analysis, matter all that much what you do with forethought; what really matters…is what you do without thinking…what you do when you do not have time to work out how to respond. It is this that will reveal what kind of person you are, and that is what is important. After all, the kingdom of heaven comes like a thief in the night, with a suddenness which will not allow us to work out how we are going to react.

I was struck by Tugwell’s description, as it seems to me a good statement of what we aspire to – such an openness to the Spirit of God in us that we do the right thing all the time without thinking, without the need to work it out.

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