Wednesday, May 27, 2009

The Secret History of History, or Just Say Yes to Yes

When Christianity is reduced to a creed or formula -- like the folks who hold up those John 3:16 signs at every football game -- it can lose its distinctly dramatic character. For unlike other religions, it cannot become a mere doctrine without betraying itself. After all, if a doctrine were sufficient, then God would have presumably dictated a memo and sent it down to a prophet without having to personally get involved in this messy business of history.

One of the reasons Muslims reject Christianity is that they cannot imagine God as man, since it is so beneath his station. It's unthinkable, like Cary Grant playing a sewer worker or MSNBC host (yes, I know, a distinction without a difference).

The point is that for the Christian, God's revelation fundamentally appears as historical action, as doing. His doing is anterior to our knowing. This is why no one could understand the teaching until the action -- the drama -- was fulfilled. And even then, it took years of collective reflection upon the drama to understand its nature and significance. Indeed, we're still trying to divine the divine plot.

It seems that many people try to focus on something Jesus said, or even the totality of what he said, in the absence of the underlying drama that ties it all together. But Jesus is unlike any other religious figure, about whom the facts of their lives are inconsequential to the teaching -- any more than the facts of science are determined by the personal biography of the researcher. You can study math or physics without getting into Einstein's childhood or Newton's manner of death. Likewise Buddha or Mohammed.

What this suggests is that God's truth -- or the truth he is trying to convey to us -- is again not at all analogous to scientific truth, which can be handed from mind to mind in an unproblematic way. What is the truth he is trying to convey? And why must it be presented in this way, as historical drama?

HvB writes that "it is absurd to say No to truth, which is of its essence good." Nevertheless, it is a truism that people everywhere and everywhen are always saying No to truth. You can hand them the truth on a silver platter, and they will reject it.

For example, one of the most naive traits of Obama is that he thinks he can actually change the behavior of evildoers merely by being "reasonable" with them. But Ahmadinejad, Kim, Hamas, Chavez, et al, only see this as weakness and opportunity. In order to deal with them, you cannot just speak truth. Rather, you must do truth. Words not backed by action are worthless, especially when coming from a politician, of all people.

But could we also say that God's words are -- with all due respect -- worthless in the absence of action? For example, I can sign a contract -- which is a kind of covenant -- that is full of fine words, but it doesn't mean much unless I back it up with action.

Thus, it seems that God's actions in history are there to remind us of the extent to which He will go to back up his Word -- which is to say, all the way. His Word is also his bond, to which he is faithful. He doesn't pull back at the last minute and say, "look, this crucifixion business is going a bit far, don't you think? Let's talk this out and be reasonable, shall we? I'm sure we can come to a mutually agreeable compromise."

Here is the dilemma for God: "how to elicit the Yes of his free partner from the latter's innermost freedom" (HvB). Again, for Balthasar, the essence of the Theo-Drama is this encounter between infinite and finite freedom. How can man surrender to infinite freedom without undermining his own?

This is not an idle question. For example, Islam (and Christians who believe in predestination) resolves the problem by canceling out man's freedom and attributing everything to God's omnipotence. One of the duties of Islam is Jihad, or the violent imposition of "Allah's truth" on others. Freedom doesn't enter into it. Scientism deals with the problem either by ignoring the question of how free will could arise in a deterministic universe, or by insisting that it's just an illusion anyway. Existentialism deals with it by suggesting that man's freedom is "ultimate," but this immediately reduces to nihilism, since our freedom has no purpose beyond itself.

But in reality, our finite freedom can only be a freely given gift of the infinite freedom. It comes from infinite freedom and must freely return to it in order for it to be true to itself. Thus, a major theme of the Theo-Drama is this spiraling return of finite freedom to infinite freedom without being forced. We must utter the Yes to God from the depths of our own freedom, in the same way that God utters his Yes to man from the depths of his.

Jesus is God's word, and that word is primarily Yes: yes to existence, yes to life, yes to freedom, yes to love. But remember, Jesus is also man, so he is simultaneously man's ultimate Yes to God. So there is the essence of your Theo-Drama, this mutual dialogue between free partners. Again, the drama is taking place "within" God, i.e., the Trinity, but it is also happening in history, allowing us to take part in the drama -- to say Yes to it, jump on the stage, and accept our role.

Please note that when this Yes happens, it is only the beginning, not the end, of your own little theo-drama. Isn't this what Jesus promised the apostles? Not, "follow me and your problems are over," but "follow me and your problems have only just begun." "For they will hate you as they hate me."

Wait -- who's "they" and what exactly do they hate?

As you can see, it's somewhat of a miracle that anyone followed him, is it not? This was not Deepak Chopra offering the seven secrets to spiritual success, but the one big secret of how to get yourself in trouble with the Roman authorities, big time. Great! Sign me up!

Yet, as Will mentioned in a comment yesterday, there is something so compelling about being in the Cosmo-Drama, that everything else pales in comparison:

"The Real Drama is not a trackless land. Study the lives of the saints, they've mapped it out pretty well, they laid down a template for negotiating your way around. It's *the* real landscape they've configured, and what doesn't make sense in the mundane world makes perfect sense there. And for those moments when your psyche is clear and your spiritual clarity is at its zenith, you'll look around and think, Who the hell in his right mind would want to live in this mundane reality hellhole?"

Living in the higher light of this drama, everything becomes more intense with meaning. I believe that this is because the closer one draws to ontological realities, the more vivid life becomes, whether it is death, or birth, or marriage, whatever; it is near these boundaries of existence that we live most intensely, and the boundary of mundane existence necessarily shades off into the celestial. Heaven is conjoined to earth, but only by virtue of being separate from it. Thus, heaven's distance is the possibility of its proximity. Insert drama here.

The Theo-Drama is the secret history of the world. It is both written and unwritten, closed and open, again, in respect of man's freedom. I would conceptualize it as I would a work of art, in which things are conditioned from top to bottom, e.g., theme --> plot --> character --> action --> dialogue. At each level down, there is more apparent freedom, and yet, everything is ultimately constrained from above.

Take this post, for example. It is composed of spontaneous words that I have spun out in freedom. And yet, it's all just dialogue in the Theo-Drama, mine and now yours.

68 comments:

julie said...

Ah, Yes.

We must utter the Yes to God from the depths of our own freedom, in the same way that God utters his Yes to man from the depths of his.

I was thinking along these lines last night, after commenting here and reading HvB. I was trying (and failing, of course, but still it helps to try) to imagine how it must have been. Here is the Man, who at any time could have just got up and walked away, or could have brought down the wrath of the cosmos. Willingly, he allowed himself to be flogged. Willingly, he allowed himself to be crowned in thorns. Willingly, he held out his hands and let them drive the nails in.

I wonder if the soldiers had even the faintest inkling of who they were killing that day? And if they did, would they have trembled in fear or would they have exulted in the apparent power that they had been given, to literally kill God?

Just a few thoughts, but now I have to run.

Thanks, Bob - high drama, indeed.

Unknown said...

aaaaaaaaagh!! Your stuff goes against so much of the orthodoxy that I have been raised on and with it makes my head hurt.

I am not complaining I am just freely expressing myself. ;)

will said...

>>Living in the higher light of this drama, everything becomes more intense with meaning. I believe that this is because the closer one comes to ontological realities, the more vivid life becomes . . <<

Yes, and I think this is why whatever trials, whatever suffering we have to endure during our passage through the Drama becomes something other than suffering. Our sorrow and sense of loss - and all such sorrow arises from attachment to the material - becomes ceremonial sense of sacrifice, one in which we are aware of giving up something to get something better.

We also become aware that our sacrifices are not just for the sake of ourselves, but for the sake of the materially enslaved world. In this way, I think, suffering is transcended.

There is great emphasis these days on what I think of as "vital energy adventure" - you can have it all, go for it all, etc. This is what happens when people are called to the vertical uplift of the Great Drama but can only comprehend it in a horizontal, material, shadow-drama way. Of course, this kind of self-willed material drama does nothing for the soul and as a result, people become more sorrowful, more frantic in their search for meaning and significance. Bottom line: without divine sense of mission, people eventually find the world to be an empty desert. At that point, I'm fearful that the material-bound collective will began seeking a collective suicide.

James said...

Will Said:
Bottom line: without divine sense of mission, people eventually find the world to be an empty desert. At that point, I'm fearful that the material-bound collective will began seeking a collective suicide.It is already happening. Collective suicide is the best way to explain the insanity around us.

julie said...

James, I was just thinking the same thing.

Will,
Our sorrow and sense of loss - and all such sorrow arises from attachment to the material - becomes ceremonial sense of sacrifice...

In this way, I think, suffering is transcended.


Indeed. I've been absent-mindedly toying with the distinction between surrender and fatalism, because it seems as though it could be dangerously easy to slide from the one to the other, though they strike me as being polar opposites. I haven't fleshed out my thoughts yet, though; perhaps the idea needs to get more half-baked first.

Petey said...

It's like jazz, baby: you can't play it without surrendering to the music.

julie said...

Thanks, Petey - I think you just threw a couple more coals on the fire. This thing may get semi-cooked yet...

Warren said...

"a sewer worker or MSNBC host (yes, I know, a distinction without a difference)"

What a horrendous slander on sewer workers!

will said...

I think fatalism is the poor man's - "poor" in this case meaning "bereft of spiritual insight" - version of divine surrender. Fatalism is indeed surrender, but without the hope for redemption.

I suppose there is a thin line between the two, but they are completely separate, just as sanity and insanity, or the fire underlying heaven and heaven itself are completely separate.

Warren said...

"Your stuff goes against so much of the orthodoxy that I have been raised on and with it makes my head hurt."

Lance,

What tradition were you raised in?

I was not raised in any, myself - but as a pagan-turned-Catholic, I usually find Bob's posts surprisingly orthodox (maybe a few residual Gnostic tendencies here and there, nothing too serious... :-)

Anonymous said...

"For example, Islam (and Christians who believe in predestination) resolves the problem by canceling out man's freedom and attributing everything to God's omnipotence. One of the duties of Islam is Jihad, or the violent imposition of "Allah's truth" on others. Freedom doesn't enter into it."

"The idea of predestination, so strongly marked in Islam, does not do away with the idea of freedom. Man is subject to predestination because he is not God, but he is free because he is "made in the image of God." God alone is absolute freedom....To deny predestination would amount to denying that God knows events "in advance" and so is not omniscient: quod absit." F. Schuon

"the jihad...has a more or less accidental character, since it depends on circumstances..." F. Schuon

Cousin Dupree said...

Hmm, I wonder why Schuon's books are banned in most Muslim countries....

Cousin Dupree said...

I've got it. Obama should meet with the jihadis and give them one of Schuon's books. Problem solved!

Anonymous said...

I see, you meant to say, "many Muslims, who fail to understand their religion, and Christians who believe in predestination....."

Anonymous said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vali_Nasr

Could be in the works, Dupree.

Northern Bandit said...

I'm sure you could even get jihadis interested in this site! Just spice the up the music section with a few freebie beheading videos, add the "Protocols" and Mein Kampf to the Light Reading section and... whoa! it's jihadi jamboree in here, Ahmed!

Maybe Dupree can learn to ululate on command?

Van Harvey said...

"Thus, a major theme of the Theo-Drama is this spiraling return of finite freedom to infinite freedom without being forced. We must utter the Yes to God from the depths of our own freedom, in the same way that God utters his Yes to man from the depths of his."

... and you have to utter that Yes in this world in order to succeed in anything at all. "Nature to be commanded, must be obeyed", in everything from turning on a light switch, to earning a living, to standing up for what you believe in... even if you then go on to deny it all three times before the cock crows.

"You can't be sure that's so...I don't see it..., how do you know it's true... we can't really know anything..., I didn't have a choice... no one really has free will afterall...."

"Living in the higher light of this drama, everything becomes more intense with meaning."

Or more nebulous and empty without it.

ximeze said...

Narcissus did not fall in love with his own reflection by accident; he was thus cursed by Nemesis for his audacious mockery of others. As for Echo, it was her dishonesty and deception that caused Hera, queen of the gods, to curse her so that her body would dwindle away to a mere voice able only to echo the words of Narcissus.

Narcissus And Echo: Obama And The Mainstream MediaHeh

Anonymous said...

Julie 8:20
I really don't want to, but will say this much and no more:
Jesus could NOT have "brought down the wrath of the cosmos". . .

Jesus died, not CHRIST (consciousness)

Theofilia (*7*)

Warren said...

"The idea of predestination, so strongly marked in Islam, does not do away with the idea of freedom."

A case of Schuon reading Christian ideas into Islam. Happens all the time - although I admit it's much more common these days to read Christian ideas into Hinduism and Buddhism....

Warren said...

"Jesus died, not CHRIST (consciousness)"

Speaking of Gnosticism....

Anonymous said...

Warren,

Speaking of Christ-light. . . Can you see your golden light aura around you? Has your head lit up like "the Sun?" yet? Do you see your Heavenly Robe? It looks like like a blue ribon of light next to your skin.

I have . . . and so much more.
If you answered "no" to all of the above then you don't know what you're talking about.

Theofilia (*7*)

Anonymous said...

There goes Warren teaching Schuon a thing or two again. Stunning really!

julie said...

Will @ 10:28 - agreed.

Maybe I'm wrong (I don't feel at all awake today, even after going back to bed for an hour; it's like trying to think through a wet blanket), but one of the byways my brain is meandering toward is the distinction between, or perhaps rather the potential for, active and passive expression. By which I mean, surrender is an act of will, and as such it is something active (even if you are acting to go with the flow), whereas fatalism strikes me as being almost completely passive, in some sense an attempted renunciation of will. Surrender may appear at times to be identical to fatalism, but it's never that because will is always involved.

Am I making any sense, or has the whole thing come crashing down? At this point I have no idea. And it's completely off-topic anyway. Oh well, back to formatting...

cowering 'coon said...

"...Can you see your golden light aura around you? Has your head lit up like "the Sun?" yet? Do you see your Heavenly Robe? It looks like like a blue ribon of light next to your skin.

I have . . . and so much more.
If you answered "no" to all of the above then you don't know what you're talking about."

Now that's an argument from authority!

Cousin Dupree said...

Either that or an argument from asshattery.

Anonymous said...

Dupree,
No, I didn't have a hat on when my head lit up like the Sun, just my goldi locks:)
And, no, I didn't have any clothes on when in-the-mirror (at first) I saw God's light 'round me, or the blue ribbon of light. . . All of which I have a journal-written proof of something I never thought I will be sharing one day. Something I didn't know about but 'came about' of its own accord. I have 2 sons who saw their "blue ribbon of light" as well. One kept pocking his finger into it with "oh cool! oh cool!". The other got all teary-eye and after a moment asked "what is it?".

How crazeee is that, eh?

Theofilia (*7*)

julie said...

Heh - how about this:

Word salad is to brain jazz as fatalism is to surrender.

NoMo said...

Personally, I can’t believe the Bible and God's omniscience and not be one of those “…Christians who believe in predestination”.

HOWEVER, defining terms is critical. “Free will” is the ability to make choices according to your desire. There are basically 2 free will theological viewpoints: Compatibilist and Libertarian. Compatibilism is the position that a person is only as free as his nature permits him to be free and that his sinfulness prevents him from freely choosing God (I Cor 2:14, Romans 3:10-12, Romans 6:14-20). Libertarian free will is the position that an unsaved sinner is still able to freely choose God in spite of his sinful nature. I'm in the first camp, but I wouldn't argue about it.

God's predestination does not mean that we cannot make free will choices. God predestines in and through our choices because God is all knowing and all powerful. He knows what we will do because he knows all things. He cannot not know all things. So, whatever you choose to do out of your own free volition is known. But His knowing doesn't mean you don't freely choose.

But, obviously, I ain't no Schuon.

wv: inesi (no, it isn't)

Real World said...

Theofilia (*7*) asked rhetorically, "How crazeee is that, eh?"

mushroom said...

Not that I'm an expert, but it sounds pretty orthodox to me. Paul defines the gospel as the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. It's the drama that really is the good news.

Good stuff, Bob. Thanks.

julie said...

Veering completely off topic finally, I like the cover on that Relayer album. The guys on the horses are almost superfluous; in miniature, you get a sense of the bigger picture: light, air, water and motion.

Anonymous said...

Julie,

In case you read this, I do have a suggestion about how to handle the "funk" you're feeling. And it is all about 'feeling', no?
Is it time to give your self permission for some 'feminine' nurturing? Thinking has no place in this realm of inner work - release. . . Giving voice to that funky-pain is the only way I know of that will release that energy. I mentioned once you needed a good cry. . . If not cry then how'bout making sounds which feel like "funk". I mean it, that energy needs to be honored not pushed back into its proper corner of your psyche.
Is curling up and moaning is more your style? Why not then. Allowing that funky sad and vulnerable energy to move through you is of essence.

Warmly, Theofilia (*7*)

Theofilia (*6*) said...

Yes Julie, just give in to the demons. Honor them. Feed them. Do anything but ignore them.

Audrey II said...

Feed me Seymour!

Anonymous said...

Hey Theofilia (*6*) you must be a comedian. And If not so much? then I still outrank you by one belt heh:)
Besides, where is your "Warmly" - eh?
HO!

"hunor" Theofilia (*7*)

Theofilia (*6*) said...

What is a "Warmly"?

bitchslap said...

Don't make come down there

Anonymous said...

Theofilia (*6*)

What's "Warmly?"
Behold, "ylmraW"

Wit alone should place me in the higher still category.

Theofilia (*9*)

too much frivolity said...

Where is my conch? I must summon Mzungu.

Theofilia (*6 said...

What is a "ylmraW"?

Theofilia (*6*) said...

What is a "ylmraW"?

loony luvgoode said...

"Is curling up and moaning is more your style? Why not then. Allowing that funky sad and vulnerable energy to move through you is of essence.
Warmly,"

Theofilia (*8*)
Theofilia (*7*)
Theofilia (*6*)
Theofilia (*-*)
Theofilia (*5*)
Theofilia (*3*)
Theofilia (*0*)
Theofilia (*9*)

For a good time Call!

JWM said...

Julie:
Fatalism vs. surrender.
Think of the current in a river. Fatalism is a raft.
Surrender is a rowboat.


wv:aterocka. And I aterockb, too.

JWM

Warren said...

"Can you see your golden light aura around you? Has your head lit up like "the Sun?" yet?"

I've been told that I think the Sun shines out of my ass - does that count?

julie said...

Warren, you were a hair's breadth away from owing me a new keyboard just now. Fortunately, I was able to both keep my mouth closed and avoid waterboarding myself.

John - I like that visual. Thanks. And just for clarity, I do understand the distinction between them - I guess what I'm trying to do in contemplating it is to deepen my understanding so that I can better internalize it (and also, I suppose as a check to make sure I don't veer over from the one to the other. While I don't think there's much danger of that, awareness is key to ensuring it is so). Different visualizations are helpful for me, in that regard.

Bob - I like the album selection tonight :)

Gagdad Bob said...

Georgie Fame is great. He was Van Morrison's musical director for about ten years, through the late '90s....

Anonymous said...

Warren 7:01

Nothing under the heaven can arrest the progress of the human soul on its long pilgrimage from darkness to light, from the unreal to the real, from death to immortality, and from ignorance to wisdom.

- The Tibetan
Theofilia (*0*)

JWM said...

Julie:
It seems to me that there are almost two 'tenses' of the word "submission", as well. In one sense, submission is acknowledging infinite wisdom and goodness and desiring to align yourself with it.
In the other, it is stark obedience to a tyranical will.
The word has the ability to refract either connotation. It's kind of a slippery term ;)

JWM

Anonymous said...

Loony,

In such a period of change and growth, emergence is often experienced by the individual as EMERGENCY with all its attendant stress.
- Rollo May

Theofilia (*0*)

julie said...

John - true; that's why I usually use the word "surrender." "Submission" carries connotations of jackboots and burqas in my brain (or, conversely bureaucratic enslavement, as in the idea of submitting papers), even though both words are pretty much the same. And of course surrender has negative implications as well, but I choose to overlook those ;)

will said...

Julie 1:17 -

Makes sense to me. Of course I could be riding the same cloud of confusion that you are, but hey . . . .

I agree that surrender is a creative enterprise. Couldn't be anything else - surrender is aligning one's self, one's will, with God's will, and God is infinite creativity.

I see divine surrender as being "effortless effort". Fatalism, contrary-wise, is just the effortlessness of bleak resignation.

Divine surrender = destiny
Fatalism = surrender to the fates

Anonymous said...

And yes, for those enquiring minds, I did allow my young boys to poke at me while I stood naked in the bathroom.


Theofilia (*7*)

sick beeotch said...

Dude!

Van Harvey said...

Nomo, that Romans 28:30 passage, In my studies translating this passage (insert loud, raucous, derisive laughter at my expense here. repeat. again), Imho I think 8:28 sets the tone (and the other links confirm it) for the further interpretation of 'predestined' used in 28:30... sort of like a spiraling Möbius strip, it seems predestined only in the sense of being engaged in a higher form of goal setting... (soul targeting?), they're assured the fruits of following such purposes through. Here's two from a site that lines up all the main translations in a single column, as well as the original Greek at the bottom.

28
King James Bible:
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Young's Literal Translation:
And we have known that to those loving God all things do work together for good, to those who are called according to purpose;

Taking the 'Literal Translation',
"to those loving God", -> those who engage in loving the word, the good, the beautiful, the True...

"all things do work together for good" -> those who conform themselves, order themselves as with the previous phrase, will find that their lives reform and integrate around and towards that which is good.

"to those who are called according to purpose", -> with "called" conveying a hearer actively heeding as well as that of being called, both harkening and responding, and "purpose" (The greek is "prothesis proth'-es-is: a setting forth, i.e. (figuratively) proposal (intention);...");

This seems all to be a teleological pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps phrase (and is similarly restated in tone in 29 & 30), but the "up" is only possible, because upwards IS There, and moving upwards through the ways of the Logos which they have aligned themselves with, opened themselves up towards, their life will assuredly come together more and more substantially as they progress; their life is shaped and self directed and at the same time pulled, upwards with purpose.

The next two passages stair step that upwards into "predestination", but it is filled with curious (to me) references to their earlier position, not later, as in because the person loved and conformed themselves to what was good, the logos, the Good, the Beautiful and the True, a higher deustination does, of course, resolve for them, a case of a goal that is apprehended, held to, and persevered in, of course leads you to that end... it predestined, in the way that setting out on the path up the hill, leads you up the hill.

Predestination... perhaps in the way that a bullseye predestines the arrow to the target. If all is One (and it is) and time is included in that as well, then of course that which contains all is aware of which and how many arrows hit the target, but it was still the practiced skill of the archers which put them there - though without the target, there'd be no there, there. And there is drama in archery (just ask William Tell or Robin Hood), even without a script which determines who wins and who loses, and it seems to me that having a tournament with a script that determines who does hits the target and where, would be just as silly as our not having the free will to aim our souls with. Drama, not pro-wrestling.

(Nomo: hidden message in the above - thanks for your links!)

Van Harvey said...

Nomo said "God's predestination does not mean that we cannot make free will choices... But His knowing doesn't mean you don't freely choose."

As usual, I think we disagree in our words, not meaning.

"But, obviously, I ain't no Schuon."

Put me down for a big ditto on that too.

Anonymous said...

Theofilia (*7*) 12:21

Not same Theofilia as this Theofilia-babe.
But since I'm at it may as well mention I realized that I could scan my breasts for any sign of cancer, because it would show up as weekness in the "blue light".

Come to think of it? Now I can't recall exactly, but I remember seeing Shiva's picture 'wearing' His blue skin. Capish?

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

Heh, you should have seen what my youngest was pointing at when he said "what's that"?
Ahh, priceless mammories eh?

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

Well it's like this -- and I think it's plain to see, that without a female counterpart, Shiva becomes 'absolete' just as the Queen in me would be 'absolete' without the King, and I like it like this because we are inLOVE.

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

And if you don't belive me check out (google Beguines of Medieval Europe) what Beatrijs van Tienen and Hadewijch of Brabant have to say on this topic. They write about the ordeal they went through in order to be with the King.

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

I belive you.

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

For the record, I - Theofilia wasn't post-dialoging with myself.
Thanx (last) Theofilia for the opportunity to share and am glad you believe . . . My this day's blog-topic touches on this very theme. Theme, that "She" may as well have never existed even though God have supposedly created male and female in his own image.

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

What are your thoughts?

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

Speak my own thoughts? - you ask.
No problem, but I need someone to watch my back ... Just so happened few minutes ago the Spirit moved me to google Hadwijch of Brabant, and next thing I knew I was reading for the first time words written by Mechthild of Magdebury which perfectly match my thoughts.

"Ah Lord, if I were an educated, religious man and You had worked this singular great wonder in him, then You would have had eternal honour from that."

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

No, not "speak your own thoughts" but "what are your thoughts?".
And would you elaborate more on Beavis Van Tiennenman?
Thx.

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

My thoughts are Her thoughts, sez she who has name.

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

You have made the 66th comment. You know what that means don't you?

Theofilia

Anonymous said...

66th comment? ohgoody:)
this one will hike it up to 67. And if I wanted to, she could do Sumnumerology . . .So, let us see...

6+7=13=1+3=4
Godspirit + Soul/mind/body = Lord's "I am her/e:)"

P.S. I was word-directed to poke my nose here again. So thereyago.

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