Prolegomena to a Christian Dudeism

A short post. For a change.

Unless and until the dictionary folk decide to redefine the term in keeping with the dictates of the left, abide can be a transitive verb meaning

1: a: to bear patiently: TOLERATE

   b: to endure without yielding: WITHSTAND

2: to wait for: AWAIT  

or an intransitive verb meaning

1: to remain stable or fixed in a state 

2: to continue in a place: SOJOURN

Now, it is axiomatic that the Dude abides, but in various ways and in diverse circumstances throughout history -- and, in the archetypal sense, throughout metahistory.

Genuine abiding is always in the context of a sojourn, which is to say, a spiritual journey, and this journey is ultimately the return to God, i.e., to the ultimate principle that ties the cosmos together.

In the Hebrew Bible, the most extreme case of patience in the face of unchecked aggression is in the book of Job. Despite being a blameless and upright dude, he enters a world of pain, only for things to work out pretty good in the end.  

There is a great deal of abiding in the New Testament as well, especially in John:

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.

Because some of the apostles were out of their element, Jesus explained further:

I am the vine, and you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.

John writes that although "the world is passing away," "he who does the will of God abides forever." Likewise, Peter says pretty much the same thing, that the word of God "lives and abides forever." This implies that abiding is the nexus of time and eternity.

Now, one of the four cardinal virtues is fortitude. However, there is the active fortitude required to, say, check the aggression of worthy adversaries in a war without rules, but there is also a passive form of fortitude that is not to be confused with pacifism, the latter being just a nihilistic pose for fragile people with emotional problems to hide behind. Am I wrong?

As it pertains to the interior sojourn, Fr. Reginald explains that the virtue of patience

is the most frequent form under which fortitude of the soul is exercised in the vexations of life. 

In the tournament of life, there are the inevitable ups and downs, strikes and gutters, but both forms of fortitude helps us to "to bear the evils of life with equanimity of soul" and "ascend toward the same summit."   

Conversely, "the impatient man, no matter how violent he may be, is a weak man." Though he may claim to be perfectly calm -- even calmer than you are -- "when he raises his voice and murmurs, he really succumbs from the moral point of view." 

Now, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday is Holy Saturday, which Pope Benedict called a “'no man’s land' between the Death and the Resurrection." It seems that between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection is the abiding.