Page 153 - Built For God Handbook (Annotated and Explained Edition) - The Christian Edition of the Tao Te Ching - The New Evangelization - Pope John Paul II

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With the teaching of the soft overcoming the hard, we are once again led
into the paradox of faith and how faith works in our lives in ways beyond our
human comprehension, like water that is fluid and yielding, yet over time
has the power to wear away the hardest of rocks.

This is a fitting metaphor for the way the Holy Spirit of God, invisible and
silent, relates to and interacts with our human spirit, finding its gentle way
into our lives whenever there is some willingness that provides an opening.
As one musician put it, “There is a crack in everything – that is how the light
gets in.”

Interestingly, there is in this chapter a connection with Indigenous spirituality
and its ethic of non-interference. Out of deep respect for the dignity of the
other person, the Indigenous are loathe to impose their ideas or views on
others, leaving them great freedom to learn from their mistakes. That
reflects the way our loving God, through the very gentle, invisible, and silent
Spirit, respects our dignity and waits for our willingness to be filled with the
gifts of the Spirit, including wisdom, which is truly teaching without words.

a 1 Corinthians 1:27-29; 2 Corinthians 12:10; Psalm 114:8;
d
b 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Exodus 14:14; Psalm 37:7; Mark 4:11-12.
c