Mother Teresa, Scott Cairns, and the Holy Struggle

• Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979

That's the hook at the front of next week's TIME Magazine cover story.

And the following article by David Van Biema has me intrigued...

Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light

Okay, but then:

Come Be My LightConfessions The Seven Storey Mountain

Not all atheists and doubters will agree. Both Kolodiejchuk and Martin assume that Teresa's inability to perceive Christ in her life did not mean he wasn't there. In fact, they see his absence as part of the divine gift that enabled her to do great work.

I've been reading Scott Cairns' latest work, a tribute to... and translation of... early Christian teachers -- Love's Immensity: Mystics on the Endless Life. Each page of beautiful prayer and profundity is accompanied by a brief introduction to the writer's life and sufferings. Their writings resonate with integrity precisely because their faith is so resilient throughout a journey of trouble, loss, rejection, persecution, and doubt... just as the Psalms are shot through with struggle.

So much of contemporary Christian writing is disposable due to the utter lack of struggle in those pages. (I would even go so far as to say that a lot of Christian writing... and art... betrays a fear of struggle, trying to cover up the reality of doubt with superficial cheer and a kind of frantic hodge-podge of scriptures pulled from their context.) Thus, a great deal of "spiritual writing" and "Christian art" seems about as substantial as an infomercial sales pitch. It's hard to find those guides who speak from experience, and those artists who work from the heart rather than a hysteria of wishful-thinking .

I stand in awe of Mother Teresa's life, and I look forward to the privilege of knowing the testimony of her trials.

Note: The editor of this collection the editor of the collection will be on the NBC Nightly News tonight.

Another note: I'm a little surprised that there hasn't been a major motion picture unveiled yet, something on the scale of Gandhi. I would hope that any such effort would mine this text for insights.