Friday, May 01, 2009

Adventures in Christianity

Balthasar writes that "The knowing mind is no longer capable of being thrilled by anything that it has thoroughly penetrated, that lies open and unveiled before it without mystery. The mind feels superior to, and looks down upon, whatever it has penetrated in this way.... It has taken cognizance of the message, and, if the message is constantly repeated, it gets impatient. Its experience is like that of a pupil with whom the teacher wants to review the same material every day, even though he has already gotten the point long ago; he is sick and tired of hearing the same thing over and over again."

I have always been easily bored. Boring people, boring places, boring routines. I'll never forget the feeling of being in school, which I absolutely detested. Waiting for that last hour to pass was literally painful. But I am never bored when my mind is free to ramble and roam.

It seems that the problem has to do with the mind being confined in someone else's little prison -- of being forced to adapt oneself to some little world, for it has nothing whatsoever to do with the living mystery of truth, and of encountering that mystery on a first hand basis.

Rather, real truth, which emanates from O, is a "perennially inexhaustible wonder" (HvB). It is permanently unmasterable, and anyone who says otherwise is a crashing bore, a jaded pinhead. This is because "As soon as we cut off the living world of signification from the ontological root that sustains it, it withers and dies" (HvB).

Pardon the self-indulgent musing. I'm just getting warmed up. But the other day, I was having a conversation with a friend who is a dyed-in-the-wool-over-his-own-eyes atheist -- one of those people who is just completely tone deaf when it comes to religion. I mentioned how I had long since abandoned philosophy for theology, and he asked why -- what do you get out of it?

Of course, I had no way to explain it in his earthly terms, i.e., to somehow fit it into his little world, which obviously excludes the realm of spirit. I mean, there is surely spirituality there, as there is in any normal person's life, but he doesn't see it as an autonomous realm, just a derivative one.

Oddly, this is obviously the real world in which humans live -- it is the quintessentially human world -- and yet, this type of person rejects the human world for a lower one, while still trying to maintain their humanness. I suppose this can work for a generation or two, but at some point, the thread that links us to our civilizational source will be snapped, and that will be the end. Then it will just be a matter of waiting for the Islamists to finish the job, as in Europe.

Anyway, this friend asked me what I "get out of theology," and I tried to answer. I pointed out that, first of all, the whole thing is an ongoing surprise to me, and that it is not even as if I chose it; rather, it has chosen me. I said that it was like entering this huge, magnificent intellectual cathedral that was perfectly adapted to the human psyche. I said that I am never happier than when I am wandering the halls of this cathedral, which is both "confined" and yet "infinite." Truly, it is like a kind of infinite and yet ordered space that fills us up without ever filling us up. It contains no truth that isn't beautiful, no beauty that isn't good, no good that isn't true... Who wouldn't want to spend as much time there as possible? It's certainly never boring.

That was pretty much the conversation killer. Which is kind of a general problem, and why I need the blog. I just don't meet many people upon whom I can inflict my true self. If you think of all the spiritual energy -- and it is energy -- that gets funneled into this blog, it wasn't too long ago that I didn't have this outlet. As a result, when I would find a remotely sympathetic listener, it would pour out of me like a torrent. I could talk and talk for hours. I didn't know where it was coming from, because it would seemingly "invent itself" as I went along. It was definitely an "altered state," in that it wasn't my normal state of mind. Mrs. G witnessed it countless times.

There is no question that something happened as a result of being in the presence of a sympathetic ear, almost like a sexual energy, if you will. Imagine someone who had never seen a female, so he is only aware of some kind of diffuse energy inside. Then he finally sees a woman, and the energy not only has an object, but is strengthened.

This is what the blogging has been like for me. All of a sudden, the energy has a focus and has been strengthened. It all happens in the space between you and me. And O.

I also want to mention something else that has been on my mind for quite awhile. I don't quite know how to formulate it without being misunderstood, but I was thinking about it yesterday while mountain biking. It's sort of provocative, so stay with me.

As you know, Mrs G has converted to Catholicism. Not only that, but quite a few of my readers have either returned to Christianity or undergone formal conversion, and for that I am humbled and eternally grateful. But what about you, Bob? What are you? And what are you waiting for?

I am not a Christian, in the commonly understood sense of the term. I have to acknowledge that up front. Now, some of you are no doubt thinking to yourself, "Ha ha. Yes you are. Stop kidding yourself. You just haven't realized it yet." I won't argue with that, but please indulge me. The point I would like to make is that, while not Christian per se, I am surely on a Christian adventure. An extraordinarily deep one, I might add. It has been ongoing for the past, I don't know, eight or nine years, and just keeps getting more compelling.

In a way, I feel like the earliest Christians, who, after all, were not "Christians." Rather, they were simply people having a Christian experience that later came to be known as "Christianity." In fact, I'm thinking of calling it that myself. But the point is, this is what makes these early writings all the more compelling. No one was telling them the "correct" way to think. They did not "believe" in religion, but were undergoing religion.

And yet, I hold back. Why? First of all, it's a process, an organic one. It reminds me of psychoanalysis, in which the candidate must undergo years of psychoanalysis in order to become an analyst. It's not like merely getting a Ph.D. or M.D., which anyone with adequate intelligence can do. Nor is it a matter of knowledge. Rather, it is a genuine transformation that must take place on the level of being, from which genuine psychoanalytic knowledge must flow. As is true of religion, psychoanalytic knowledge divorced from being is more or less worthless. It must always be backed by the full faith and credit of real experience. It is not abstract, but concrete. Or, to the extent that it is abstract, the abstractions must always be rooted in personal experience.

It is surely the same way with religion. I don't want to say that this should be a general rule for everyone, because not everyone has the same vocation. Some if not most people need to convert first, experience later. But my blogging, for example, is only possible because it is being done by someone encountering these ideas and realities for the first time, and spontaneously disclosing their effect on me. I must re-emphasize -- just in case it isn't obvious -- that I am hardly a scholar, much less a Christian theologian.

Rather, what you are seeing is a purely spontaneous production chronicling the encounter between me and Christian truth, which I believe, in a certain way, gives it more weight than it might have if I were simply reciting dogma as an "insider." While some of what I say might sound dogmatic or authoritarian, I must again emphasize that I am not in my right mind when I'm saying it. Rather, I not only try to write about what I know, but what I don't know. That is, I try to "write beyond myself," so to spook, so that I am as genuinely surprised as anyone else at what comes out. Boo!

It is very important to me that I reach people who aren't religious, but still have an impulse to be -- especially people with the "Jesus willies." I think that I would be less convincing if I were simply coming from a Christian perspective. In other words, perhaps I can be analogous to the disinterested scientist who explains how global warming or reductionistic Darwinism are bogus. People get enough of the normal evangelizing, and, as often as not, it backfires. But when a disinterested person with no vested interest is doing the selling, it may be more effective. You know, Coonsumer Reports.

As I have mentioned, although I am still blogging about the Theo-Logic, I am already well into volume three of the Theo-Drama, which is said to be Balthasar's greatest work. I am quite sure I've never read anything so rich, and I'll probably have to spend a year blogging about it.

But one thing that struck me with great force yesterday while contemplating a passage, is how the West has virtually taken a wrecking ball to its own priceless cathedrals. This is our home, the source of our civilization. It is where we were meant to live. It's just so achingly true and exquisitely beautiful, that it makes you want to weep at man's arrogance and folly.

What reveals itself is so rich that it satisfies his entire need for truth; what remains hidden is so mysterious that he knows he is sheltered within its veiled womb. Everything that exists is allusive, is a pointer and a reminder, and any conceptual clarification of univocal definition of these infinite significations would appear to him an impoverishment, perhaps even as a profanation.... To say explicitly what their wordless song tells us would be presumptuous, if it were not altogether futile. --Balthasar

*****

As Saint Augustine might have said, "what I was out there tryin' to find, I done had it right here all the time." (See p. 261, line 7)

55 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL. Forget the labels. Who is your master? Those of us who have been here for years can see it clear as day.

Gagdad Bob said...

Shut up! Let me have my illusions.

Cory said...

I have to agree with Anon. You are a funny guy, Brother Robert. I told you once that I thought you are a Christian of the free range variety and I meant it. You are as much a Christian as any professing Christian I have ever read.

I became a professing Christian 13 years ago. But I still do not think I am a Christian. I never seem to catch up with the Master and so never measure up as I know I should. But I do profess Christ and on the day I face Him I will profess him for my soul's sake. And that is faith, brother, because as far as I am concerned I am not worthy of the grace and mercy He personifies and freely offers. But He said he would grant these to any who believe and I work hard to believe and to act on what I believe.

Joan of Argghh! said...

I just don't meet many people upon whom I can inflict my true self.
Oh, I don't know how old I was before I figured this out. Now, I just keep quiet. The poor soul onto whom I would inflict my Self would start backing up with that, "geez, where did THAT come from?" look.
I've come to recognize the visual clues. It helps.

julie said...

lol Joan - yep, me too :D
Now back to reading...

Peter said...

Anon 1 here (forgot to put my name in). Been thinking bout this the last hour or so. I think the problem with any type of label is that it places a boundary condition on our thinking. I can totally relate to Bob's feeling here. Christianity is of necessity a contained structure of thinking. What it is actually about or points to is not contained or containable, as our friend HVB and many other authorized agents (including our host here) make clear. I don't see any problem accepting christian truth, and very much consider myself a christian, but I am not willing to voluntarily limit my sight line to the approved distances.

Gagdad Bob said...

peter:

And yet, the structures are surely necessary. Perhaps it goes back to the old complementarity of Petrine/Johanine theology -- between the rock and an avant-garde place.

Gagdad Bob said...

Or homesteaders and wanderers....

Leslie Godwin said...

It might be a male/female difference, but for me, joining the church has been liberating, not confining in any way. Like marriage in so many ways. But women experience these things differently than men, who dislike being stuck with one mate while women have a desire to have one man to dote on and nag.

I've never been a joiner, but when called to the Church, felt such a joy and relief at having found my spiritual home. So that may be my female nature, but it might be because I finally transcended my discomfort with wanting to be part of a group that would have me (sorry Groucho.)

Cory said...

Dichotomies abound. Getting through these is like one of those movies where the hero walks a narrow ledge while dodging swinging axes, sandbags and blades. These always come from the far left or the far right. If they just sort of hung there our hero could step around them.

robinstarfish said...

Rather, what you are seeing is a purely spontaneous production chronicling the encounter between me and Christian truth, which I believe, in a certain way, gives it more weight than it might have if I were simply reciting dogma as an "insider." This illustrates why I love OC so much. I, on the other hand, must constantly "reconvert" my childhood religious upbringing into something grander (and unexpected) all the time, like a molting insect. So to vicariously ride along with you without all the accumulated baggage is exhilarating. Time and time again, I see old things for the first time.

wv: fasmsect - anybody have a swatter?

swiftone said...

AS a paraphrase "inflicting yourself upon..." Do you see the number of your coons who have a similar sensation of reaching toward the glimpsed spark in a fellow human, only to find that it's met by a stare of "Do I know you??" and "where is the perfectly sane person I was chatting with a moment ago?"

Not done reading yet, but I did glance through the comments.

Anyway, re "not professed Christian" a thought occurred to me connecting .... nevermind you don't care where I try to trace it.

It's always seemed to me that a parish priest/protestant pastor who is a sincere seeker has a most frustrating spot to try to exist in. Keeping the flock comfortable while seeking honestly would require some faith and fearless flying. I suspect many just bog down, "do the job" in some empty sort of way, burning out as teachers do. Seems like your hints of a Christian yoga would be a wonderful practice for young or new pastors to help them stay fresh, to continue to feel the cathedral. Now if you could find a funding stream..... Ok, I'm full of ideas for other people's lives. Now let me figure out what God intends me to be!

Anonymous said...

So true about having a blog as an outlet . . . And now that I do blog I'm surprised just how much I have to say! And I'm glad for it.

It would never occur to me to have my own blog. For one, it would never occur to me in the FIRST place! But even if it did, I would instantly think "Can't do that I don't have a budget for it. Besides, who the hell am I? and, who would be interested in my stories?"

But that all changed once Zoltan got hold of me and with his best Durga holler beseached me to blog. But not after much whining on my part.
Then on St. Patrick's day I did it!
"I'll write for my kids, my familly."

The same day I began posting here. Next thing I knew Robin Starfish took it upon her/his self to snoop and post here my blog address-thang-link. I was pissed at first but ohwell.
And if Van was reading this I would say to him "See? aren't you glad that I don't have to piss you off any more with my "reminiscences?." (I'm sure he spelled that word corectly too:)

Theofilia

Unknown said...

Look out! LGF's Charles Johnson just earned the "Dhimwit of the month" award for inflicting himself on others. :)

April 2009: Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs voted Dhimwit of the month

Gagdad Bob said...

Beautiful takedown of Old Yellowstain!

Gagdad Bob said...

The only problem with the analysis is that it assumes Queeg has some conscious control over his paranoia, which he manifestly does not. He's not "coming back." Rather, he'll only get further entrapped in and smothered by his fantasies. It's like a spiral that just gets tighter and tighter.

julie said...

Just the opposite of what we do here. Poor thing.

julie said...

I like the Tyrone - yet another example of the sweetness of music back in the day, as compared to now. There's no undercurrent of edginess or melancholy or irony, just joyful exuberance.

Mkaes me miss the good old days, and I wasn't even in them.

It is where we were meant to live. It's just so achingly true and exquisitely beautiful, that it makes you want to weep at man's arrogance and folly.

*sigh*
Indeed.

Gagdad Bob said...

Paranoia vs. metanoia.

Northern Bandit said...

A pivotal post that reaches way deep down inside me and resonates profoundly. Compared with my missionary cousin I've always felt like an outsider looking in...

Christian adventure. Perfect.

mushroom said...

dyed-in-the-wool-over-his-own-eyes

Pure poetry.

If only I could remember what I already know.

I could probably go home.

Cousin Dupree said...

Is Bob a Christian who doesn't know it, or is this guy a Coon who doesn't know it?

Unknown said...

Other comments about Queeg are HERE :)

julie said...

That's what I thought this morning, Dupree :D

T said...

I think that I would be less convincing if I were simply coming from a Christian perspective.It sounds like you simply don't want to be the victim of ad hominem attacks. You want to have people really listen to you because you don't want to be immediately pigeonholed.

If that is where you are coming from I can certainly relate. But it's interesting: you certainly don't worry about that on the political front.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Forget Queeg. Seems that more and more good writers are pondering aloud the STFU movement on the left.
Cobb has a brilliant piece today, aptly titled, Prick

sehoy said...

You speaka my lingua.

People talk about sitting at Jesus's feet. I've never experienced that. For me, he is always stiding ahead. I'm walking fast, trying to keep up, and all I can see is the backs of his feet.

terrence said...

I like the title of Robert Spenser's post "Little Green Drama Queen".

Bob's post today is yet another one that I relate to Big Time.

I know some people who call themselves "Christian" who are wonderful people. It is a joy to spend time with them.

I know other people who call themselves "Christian" who are complete jerks - Bible thumping robots who mechanically and endlessly say "Praise Jesus", often at the most inappropriate time. I wonder if they have any idea of what Jesus was on about. They seem to be very fragile people, who desperately need a crutch, and "Christianity" will do just fine. Hopefully they will get it one day.

julie said...

Thanks for the Cobb link, Joan. There are a couple of tasty tidbits in there:

Everything, it seems, is argued ad hominem because everyone, it seems, is trying to be loved. Doing something, to be loved. Say that slowly and realize how people struggle to achieve a state of grace, a retirement threshold after which you *are* something by acclamation.

The trouble there is, doing something to be loved by whom? If you're like the monks in the article Les linked last weekend (or whenever that was), and working to love and be loved by God (and yes, I know we already are - but it still behooves us to at least try and earn it, inasmuch as we are able), then you can reach a state of true grace. If, however, you're working primarily to be loved by man, to find your meaning in the adulation of other people (whether you actually care anything for them or not) well... I don't think I need to go into details.

Allow me to be warm in my personality and love you for your company.

I just like that line :)

Anonymous said...

Jesus said look 'round and when you see the least loved, the most marginalised I will be there also.

(James 2:14-15-16) What use is it, my brethern, if a man says he has faith, but he has no works? Can that faith save him?
If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and be filled," and yet do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?

James 2:20 ".. are you willing to recognize you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?

ducking Theofilia

Anonymous said...

sehoy, may I offer this thought:

"Instead of trying to keep up with Jesus' stride and seeing only the backs of his feet, look 'round for bare feet of a beggar and give Him shoes."

wv hersep Theofilia

julie said...

Off topic, but looks like some chickens are coming home to roost.

Van Harvey said...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Misadventures in little girl inanity... nine 9 & 10 year old girls on a B-Day (10th) sleep over party!!!

Help ME!!!
I can't read!
I can't think!

I'm already being pulled away from my ppppppppppppppppppccccccccccccccccc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Skully! Help Me!!(oh... wait... wrong kind of party...) Ximeze!!!!!!!!!!!!! Joan!!!!!!!!! Julie!!!!!!!!! (no... now my wife'll be mad[oomph] that mad her mad too)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wv:trycater
ya think?!!!

julie said...

I feel for ya, Van - the giggle meter and screech factor must be pegged at 10. It's going to be a long night :D

Happy birthday to your 10 year old!

ximeze said...

Van,
No, no, more girls inside won't help you at this time - we're liable to just get the giggles too and be completely useless in your emergency.

Skully pounding on your front door, demanding lengthy National Security Manbunker Consultation is the daring rescue plan in response to your SOS.

Yes, he has been briefed to hold the grog behind his back when approaching your house.

Joan of Argghh! said...

Man up, Van! Fer crying out loud, they're just little girls.

Srsly? Is there anything more formidable than a room full of squirrely girls?

Cousin Dupree said...

Earthquake! I'm gonna say 3.4.

ximeze said...

OT for last Saturday Anon who posted Admiral Zacharias link:
Bill Whittle Jon Stewart, War Criminals & The True Story of the Atomic Bombs

julie said...

Dupree, looks like your were low by an order of magnitude.

Magnus Itland said...

Only yesterday did I see someone quoted that "nobody who has read the Bible will call himself a Christian afterwards". While that is not literally true, I can certainly sympathize. I was a Christian, and a pretty good one, before I read the Bible for real and was horrified. God was not the God I expected, and I was not the man I expected either. It took years before I called myself a Christian again, and it still feels not quite right, as if I am blaspheming in a language people around me don't know.

Cousin Dupree said...

Hmm. I didn't figure the epicenter was literally under the house, or I would have made adjustments.

ximeze said...

... it was like entering this huge, magnificent intellectual cathedral that was perfectly adapted to the human psyche. I said that I am never happier than when I am wandering the halls of this cathedral, which is both "confined" and yet "infinite." Truly, it is like a kind of infinite and yet ordered space that fills us up without ever filling us up. Rereading this brings to mind the drawings of Chris Van Allsburg, especially The Mysteries of Harris Burdick image The Seven ChairsRather, I not only try to write about what I know, but what I don't know. That is, I try to "write beyond myself," so to spook, so that I am as genuinely surprised as anyone else at what comes out. Boo! Colored me spooked: suddenly a week or two ago Schoun & HvB quotes started making complete sense - or would that be complete nonsense - as units, as it were, more than just words strung together in a language I can read.

You try to write beyond yourself, we try to read beyond ourselves, and we meet wandering the halls of this magnificent cathedral.

How
Very
Boo

ximeze said...

Chingalinebreaks

julie said...

Ximeze,
You try to write beyond yourself, we try to read beyond ourselves, and we meet wandering the halls of this magnificent cathedral.

What a perfectly beautiful way to put it!

(p.s. - to get the spaces to show, you have to add an extra space after the last > now)

Tonight's funny: Dalai Lama loves Bush; leftist's head explodes in whining: "The Dalai Lama is no Buddhist!"

Van Harvey said...

"In a way, I feel like the earliest Christians, who, after all, were not "Christians." Rather, they were simply people having a Christian experience that later came to be known as "Christianity." "

I cooncur. I've been in the situation of dwelling in and among the ideas of the OC for a couple years now, reveling in the acoustics and enjoying the architecture, the way the light colors the glass as it streams through, the fullness of the supposedly empty space soaring up into the arches high above... and then strolling down the center aisle, opening and passing through the doors and suddenly standing up and staring around and looking behind me startled to see that I've just come from a church.

I love being inside it. I still occasionally get the Jesus willies when looking at the outside, but it passes once I pass back in through the doors.

NoMo said...

I was led to OC some 3 or so years ago by an dear old friend / like mind (he is still a regular as well). Early on I remember commenting to Bob that I always seek to test / filter experience through the truth of scripture (although I'm far from a scholar) and that I quickly found that, although a "tad" unconventional (thankfully), Bob consistently abides. I believe he responded,
"Thank you, I think."

Over time I have come to see that the minds in whom Bob steeps himself are those of Godly people who have steeped themselves in scripture...Schuon, Balthasar, UF, etc. When God draws one to Himself, it has to be an individual, unique greeting. When each that is drawn is compelled to respond to that Grace, it will also be a unique response. What follows may be pretty unique as well. How could it be otherwise?

Many believers are more comfortable participating as part of some particular group / denomination - and that's great. Others participate in the Real in more individually. I'm sort of caught in between. Both draw me, but neither fully captures me. The Bible captures me. The church invisible and universal, made without hands, has my heart. Great expositors of scripture always draw me most - they and my own personal explorations into the word.

I know I speak for many regulars when I say thanks for making room for this motley raccoon crew on your "personal" adventure cruise. The deustination is sonearandyetso farallatonce. Thankfully.

ximeze said...

Julie, thanks for the tw

extra space after the last > now
extra space after the last > now
extra space after the last > now ...

Van Harvey said...

Ok... I stood up to those 9 & 10 yr old girls... this was pretty much the result... especially about 39 seconds into it.

Awful. They've got Hanah Montana kareoke going... my poor 16 yr old boy's room is right above their party... he's going to be psychicly damaged by the intense giggles.

"They're Horrible..."

;-)

julie said...

:D
I wondered if there was karaoke involved. I bet my parents are really glad they didn't have that when I was growing up...

Kepler Sings said...

People like you and Racoons in General are the founders of spiritual science, or more appropriately the explorers of the super-natural world.

The beginning of modern science came from a time when men were emerging from the stilted and mostly dark medieval church and were free to discover the creative acts of God around them in nature.

The founding fathers of science were almost all devout Christians. The founders of false science, whether of the natural world (Darwin), political world (Marx) or of the mind (Freud) were either apostate, atheist, or perverted. See Revelation:

Revelation 16
12: And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
13: And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
14: For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
15: Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
16: And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
Those demons say:

1. God is not the creator of all (Darwin) (Mouth of the Dragon)

2. God is not the authority over nations, or rather human history (Marx) (Mouth of the Beast)

3. God is not over the human conscious (Freud) (Mouth of the False Prophet)

But just as new truth was revealed by the early founders of natural science which ushered in the modern age. So now a new age will be defined by those that are the discoverers of the super-natural. Our instruments of discovery must be super-natural revelation, as the spiritual realm cannot be accessed by man made instruments.

It was out of darkness these men shone. It is once again out of a spiritual darkness that the new explorers will shine. I think God must have loved Rembrandt.

Magnus Itland said...

I have to respect the geniuses who can integrate the personal experience and the organized religion. I sure can't. I still feel that I have more in common with a personal Hindu or even Taoist than with the common churchgoer for whom the afterlife is a separate event which has not already begun.

Magnus Itland said...

OK, that came across waaay too pious of me, even though it is true. The thing is, once in my much younger years, I was sitting in a Christian meeting half listening to some doctrine. Then God said to me: "Choose now. You can get the truth, even if you cannot handle it. Or you can forget that which is too much for you, so you can have a good conscience." (This was many years before the Matrix, btw.) Of course I replied "Give me the truth!" because that's the kind of guy I am. The overconfident kind. "I thought you would say that" replied God. And since then I have been this worm, a stranger in Paradise, completely inadequate to what I see all around me, a small dirty porcupine scuttling around in your beautiful cathedral. But just you try to get me out of there.

Joan of Argghh! said...

that's the kind of guy I am. The overconfident kind.
LOL!

But I like the idea of a scuttling critter in the House of the Lord. I suspect I am but a detestable possum, both the figurative and literal kind.

LakeTrout said...

[It is very important to me that I reach people who aren't religious, but still have an impulse to be -- especially people with the "Jesus willies."]

Mission accomplished.

Tamquam Leo Rugiens said...

Not to worry, Adventurer. Seek the Source and Union, Truth, Goodness and Beauty will find you. Seek Union, Truth, Goodness and Beauty (singly or in any combination) and the Source will find you.

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