I've been thinking about different forms of cooperation. There is a temptation on the job to fill a customer's request rather than their need. I may know more than what I'm telling. This minimalist philosophy means that I'm only legalistically cooperating.
There are times when I'm on the other side of the equation. I'm at a dentist's office, getting my teeth drilled, scraped, needled or otherwise brutalized. Because I'm motivated for it to be over quickly, I may "over-cooperate" in trying to lend my help to the dentist by slightly moving my jaw into said instrument of torture and by anticipating his movements. In order to save the doc exertion and time in whatever mechanical action he is doing, I try to add my energy.
With God, it seems both forms of cooperation are useless. In the customer service example (obviously the more familiar error) I'm cooperating only with my lips and not my whole mind and body and soul. Catherine de Hueck Doherty, foundress of Madonna House, wrote:
"There are certain moments in your prayers or thinking - moments in your life with God - when suddenly you mean what you are saying or doing with all your heart and soul, with everything that you are. At those moments you are saying in effect, "Take my mind and my will, Lord, and cleanse them." At these times you really mean it. Do these moments last a minute, an hour, a day? You don't know. You only know that afterwards, your mind and your will have been returned to you cleansed. You are more alive."In the dental example, life is meant to be lived, not to be Jansenistically "gotten over". The imperfect dentist is replaced by the perfect God, so impatience and anticipating His moves seem inappropriate.
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