As mentioned the other day, its seems that I feel better when I post than when I don't. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that communing with Ultimate Reality might be a "good way to start the day." Like planting good seed in the morning, or... I suppose it makes me feel like...
Petey, who was the fellow who said something about the point of life being to fire on all cylinders for something or other?
"I fancy the individual you have in mind, sir, is the philosopher Aristotle, who remarked that the Good of man is the active exercise of his soul’s faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue."
Yes, that's the one. I shall proceed to exercise the old faculties in c. with e. and v.
In any event, one way or another, this blogging business has become my primary Spiritual Practice, nor do I see it as something separate from prayer -- which is the subject and book under discussion. Mainly I pray for Light and the ability to reflect it, or pass it along to the Scattered Remnant.
Here, look at what Balthasar says: "The person who prays not only stands before truth and contemplates it objectively," but tries to live "in the truth" itself:
"Praying within the truth" means that we stand before "something pre-existing from time immemorial." This is what we are built for, as Aristotle says above: "Anything in us that runs counter to this is therefore merely a belated denial of what is our real truth, and hence nothing but a self-contradiction" (HvB).
Instead of horizontal intimacy with another person, it is vertical intimacy with the Metacosmic Person(s):
"Thus the union of the human being in grace and the Holy Spirit yields an ineffable fruit... in which it is impossible to say what comes from man and what comes from God. The 'fruits' of the Spirit in the receptive soul arise from the union of God's life with man's..."
These fruits, "once they have come to maturity, to our astonishment leave the 'womb'..."
Yes they do.
A dream. Last night. I'm explaining to someone that I'm trying to write a book. There's a huge wall before me -- like the Wall of Reality -- and I study parts of it with a monocle-like device, one part at a time. I explain that I'm trying somehow to assemble or synthesize the whole out of all the parts; or rather, waiting for the Spirit to show me how all the partial views through the monocle add up to the whole.
Am I wasting my timelessness?
"Intimacy with the Holy Spirit of truth... cancels out the spectator's uninvolved objectivity, with its external, critical attitude to the truth, and replaces it with an attitude which one can only describe as prayer."
So, is God telling me I don't have a prayer, or at least the right one?
"This prayer is total." It involves "our receiving and self-giving, our contemplating and our self-communication, in a single, undivided whole."
Reminds me of what our Unknown Friend says about how concentration without effort is putting unity into practice...
9 comments:
"Am I wasting my timelessness?"
(smiles) "crisp little sentences like silver fish jumping out of streams."
Here is Manfred Honeck (condutor, bateleur) talking about God, family, work, -- a Trinity. He's a raccoon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it5rKjXWWXU
Re. the dream, I had a very similar one way back when.
"This prayer is total." It involves "our receiving and self-giving, our contemplating and our self-communication, in a single, undivided whole."
Yes, just so. It is easy to get caught up in the idea of prayer as transactional: an exchange of petitions asked and (hopefully) thanks given. And those are important, but I think only inasmuch as they give us an opportunity to enter into that intimate space.
Now that’s what I’m talking about. Some anonymous guy I’ve never heard about, from a long time ago in a country far, far away, comes up with basically the same vision. And he doesn’t care if he gets credit - just wants to toss it out there for others, and hopefully smarter others, to ponder.
I was at a Catholic blog once, where a creationist, an atheist and an intelligent design guy were all hammering away at each other using all the usual derogatory. (sounds like a joke - a creationist, an atheist and an intelligent design guy walk into a Catholic blog) But this was real. I lurked, sensing something was wrong about their arguments. Then it hit me. A spiritual creator, being everywhere all the time, certainly has the right to step in at any place and time to tweak their design. Or more likely, they'd know in advance exactly how every little thing will pan out in the end. Arguing linearly, that C follows B follows an A that got rolled in one direction hoping the rest would follow, is narrow thinking, when a theoretical creator will already know (not guess) the C. I told them this. There was a pause, then they all went back to hammering away at each other. Another guy popped up and said: “Let em be. This is entertaining. But I think the Jesuits been thinking your way for a long time.”
Maybe, but I know others can ‘feel’ the same thing.
I know a Jewish guy who in retirement, had it all. Security, family, friends in cool places he’d travel to... But he suffered from severe daily anxiety attacks. I suggested the Bible mantra thing (old testament version), but it didn’t work. Then on his own, he joined a neighborhood association which at the time was battling a collusion between big business and big government which wanted to build large ugly structures through the middle of his neighborhood. David vs. two headed Goliath. The three little association guys won. This sensitive timid little guy claimed he never once had a panic attack while fighting the nasty giant, with all their nasty little lawyer henchmen. Go figure. Fearless in battle, fearful at rest. I guess the point is that everybody is different. And when you’re spiritual, you do what works for you.
"Saving Private Ryan" -- Hanks' hand shakes until the fight is on.
Mainly I pray for Light and the ability to reflect it, or pass it along to the Scattered Remnant."
Thank you, Bob.
"Intimacy with the Holy Spirit of truth... cancels out the spectator's uninvolved objectivity, with its external, critical attitude to the truth, and replaces it with an attitude which one can only describe as prayer."
Quasi motto:'Da Gongs, da GONGS!'
I often think it an impediment to men's quest for the Mystery that they do not understand the submission of the wife, the mother, the womb-- nor the will of the Husband, the Lord, the Father. Our womanly rebellion will testify to our own particular impediments.
That Holy Mystery is just that. It is easier, I suppose, for a woman to know the thrill and the terror of steely, powerful arms that can embrace or crush, and to submit fully to the will behind their strength... and in it find a rest so sublime as to quell any anxiety. Then there is the powerlessness to stop what Life has begun inside one's own life, the helplessness and surrender to the pain of its fruits in her children's joys and sorrows, for the rest of her life. She is (or can be) the sober, joyful hostage to Love, if she knows Love as He is.
Post a Comment