Conscience and the Cobrador
“Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God’s grace.”
2 Corinthians 1:12
I love Louise Penny’s murder mystery books on so many levels. The one I am currently reading, “Glass Houses,” uses the Spanish “cobrador” as an example of Conscience, a dark brooding figure who goes to the small, fictional village of Three Pines and stands on the village green for two days, watching and waiting. The big question underlying its presence is: for whom is the cobrador waiting? Who is Conscience watching? The presence of this figure disturbs many of the villagers, who find its presence among them uncomfortable and antagonizing
Our conscience matters. If we are ill at ease with ourselves, it may be because we’re running from our conscience somehow. Maybe we are aware of the what and the why we are avoiding it. Or maybe it’s been so long and so subtle, we don’t realize there is anything wrong until we wake up and wonder who we are when we look in the mirror — and perhaps it will take a little time and a little prayer for the underlying reason to become clear.
As people who are in Christ, as we spend time in prayer, digest Scripture, share with God’s faithful and open ourselves to God’s Spirit, our conscience can be stirred, restored and refined. We will find a voice within us beginning to speak, a sense that says something is not okay, that something we’re doing or saying does not align with who we are in Christ. It is not loud and condemnatory. It does not attack who we are, but a lack of peace, a discomfort grows — if we would only listen.
In Second Corinthians, Paul’s boast is of integrity and a clear conscience, not of mighty acts or great successes, but integrity, sincerity and a clear conscience. Paul and the apostles may not have lived lives that make sense to others around them, let alone the world at large. To trust in that inner voice, to allow God to speak through our conscience, to act faithfully and trust in God’s refining process, which takes trust in God Himself and that His grace that will carry us through takes faith.
And the path to a whole conscience — one through which God can and will speak — takes time and patience, one day at a time and one decision at a time, not to run away, but to lean in, to listen, and to adjust course.
Are you listening?
