All My Words Are Straw
I am endlessly fascinated by this statement of one of the great scholars, intellectual leaders, and saints of the Catholic Church. And if the statement holds any truth at all for St. Thomas Aquinas, how much more true must it be for all the rest of us? I think about the energy poured out in blogging and in writing of all sorts and I wonder whether this expenditure is worthwhile. The first question must always be, "Does it serve God?"
I think St. Thomas, enraptured by the vision granted him by God, came to value his work as a human work--as nothing in the light of Glory. But somehow, I do not think God so values it and so too with our feeble efforts. Just as with every page of bug-eyed frog-people, I treasure and value the art work and the attempts of my beautiful son to express himself, so I believe God values each of our attempts to give Him glory no matter how feeble, distorting, and incomplete. When I'm led to wonder whether it is worth continuing to write and to say things, I look at the refrigerator or at the wall of my cubicle at work and say--yes, it is, isn't it?