I think that in order for a deed to qualify as good works, it would require a kind of love that is uncomplicated with no ulterior motive, that is whole and wholesome, seeks no reciprocation and has no reservation and that is enthusiastic, energetic and inexhaustible.
This love, if permitted to prevail over a task no matter how trivial and permeate its every aspect, it will transform what is ordinary into something extraordinary. In other words, an action that is motivated by and carried out with such love is absolute: its quality can neither be enhanced by popularity, recognition, awards, the breath of its coverage or the duration of its impact nor diminished by a lack thereof.
I am unable to imagine a deed integrally tied to this kind of love can have an ill effect on others and their surround but certain that its goodness can emanate beyond the recognizable or the immediate.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Making A Difference – Part 5 - Alive And Looking For God's Truth
Finding God’s truth [1] is a daunting task, requiring a strategy. It would combine an analysis of the words of various sages including Mahatma Gandhi, Khalil Gibran and Confucius aka Kǒng Zǐ and in religious books such as the Bible, the Torah and the Koran with an amalgamation of different definitions and descriptions of truth. Then God’s truth ought to become apparent as a result.
Wasting no time, I began googling. The task turned out to be excruciatingly tedious. Within two days I had lost interest and quit.
Unable to think of an alternative approach, I became obsessed. A prayer was in order. I said one and gave my mind a rest. It remained blank for a few moments or maybe even a day when preceded by nothingness the answer came. It was a single word.
The word was love. I was stunned and did not know what to think. How could love be equated with truth? There would be no sympathetic ear for my childish protests. It was decreed.
What followed was a writer’s disappointment. Love was not my next topic. In my amorphous plan for this blog I would ultimately address it but not until I have finished reading Dante’s Purgatorio and found inspiration in Dante’s Paradiso. It would not be anytime soon. The plan had been changed.
Had the concept of love not entered my consciousness, I would have nonetheless carried on despite obsessing over the lack of a “plan B.” In preparation for it, I had all my mental faculties fully sharpened, ready to discover God’s truth and state it in my own words. At the time I had no clue what to say but in retrospect I would probably have begun examining the issues of the day, to see if God’s truth could reasonably be found hidden somewhere among human sufferings. I realize now that that would have been a waste of time since God’s truth does not reside in the brain; it resides in the heart. Being told that love, not ever being cerebral, is God’s truth, God’s truth is therefore beyond analysis and superior to reason.
I now know that to make a meaningful difference, good works must be done out of love, but what kind of love?
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433-4. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
Wasting no time, I began googling. The task turned out to be excruciatingly tedious. Within two days I had lost interest and quit.
Unable to think of an alternative approach, I became obsessed. A prayer was in order. I said one and gave my mind a rest. It remained blank for a few moments or maybe even a day when preceded by nothingness the answer came. It was a single word.
The word was love. I was stunned and did not know what to think. How could love be equated with truth? There would be no sympathetic ear for my childish protests. It was decreed.
What followed was a writer’s disappointment. Love was not my next topic. In my amorphous plan for this blog I would ultimately address it but not until I have finished reading Dante’s Purgatorio and found inspiration in Dante’s Paradiso. It would not be anytime soon. The plan had been changed.
Had the concept of love not entered my consciousness, I would have nonetheless carried on despite obsessing over the lack of a “plan B.” In preparation for it, I had all my mental faculties fully sharpened, ready to discover God’s truth and state it in my own words. At the time I had no clue what to say but in retrospect I would probably have begun examining the issues of the day, to see if God’s truth could reasonably be found hidden somewhere among human sufferings. I realize now that that would have been a waste of time since God’s truth does not reside in the brain; it resides in the heart. Being told that love, not ever being cerebral, is God’s truth, God’s truth is therefore beyond analysis and superior to reason.
I now know that to make a meaningful difference, good works must be done out of love, but what kind of love?
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433-4. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Making A Difference – Part 4 – Where Is God’s Truth?
Knowing that God exists does not help with knowing God’s truth. According to John Ciardi, good works would follow automatically if one were to give all of his energy and attention to the pursuit of God’s truth. [1] I agree with him, so I need to find out where is God’s truth and what it is. Otherwise, how could life have even a scintilla of meaning when one tries to make a difference by doing good works that turn out not to be good works in God’s eyes? With God’s grace I would get to the divine truth.
There is no guarantee that grace would be granted, however. In that case, how could I be so arrogant as to think that I would find God’s truth and state what it is? But what is the alternative? The alternative is to live life without knowing or caring about it. Many are doing just that, allowing worldly matters to consume all of their energy and attention.
That is fine too. Free will permits each of us to choose what to consume and how much. Nonetheless, God’s truth exists. Despite its existence, the world has far more interest in the other kinds of truths, such as scientific truths, observable truths, undiscovered truths, partial truths, obfuscated truths and manufactured truths. The latter three truths are also known as fiction, or lies. All these earthly truths or lies, compared to God’s truth, are presumably unremarkable. Yet they are powerful, for all human decisions and lives are based on them, and so too, is the state of the world.
As a result, the world is not utopian. It is not unlivable either. Some, in fact, live quite comfortably and happily while complaining intermittently, even bitterly. Therefore, to no one’s surprise, everyone seems to be able to imagine a better place, and a worse one. The fact that people have such visions suggests that life on earth may not be all there is with nothing preceding it and nothing afterward, and that an existence could very well take place beyond our planetary sphere and our earthly lives. These imaginary places are not just places but also states of mind. At one extreme is heaven, a place of peace and complete fulfillment, at the other, hell, a place of torment and unquenchable desires. I think God’s truth would be clear at either destination. That does not help since I would already be dead and it could be too late.
Earlier I was thinking that it would be great if I can know God’s truth but it would not be a tragedy if I did not. The paragraph I just finished changed my mind. Now I am dying to know God’s truth. I just hope that I do not have to die first to find out.
Life cannot be that ironic, can it?
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
There is no guarantee that grace would be granted, however. In that case, how could I be so arrogant as to think that I would find God’s truth and state what it is? But what is the alternative? The alternative is to live life without knowing or caring about it. Many are doing just that, allowing worldly matters to consume all of their energy and attention.
That is fine too. Free will permits each of us to choose what to consume and how much. Nonetheless, God’s truth exists. Despite its existence, the world has far more interest in the other kinds of truths, such as scientific truths, observable truths, undiscovered truths, partial truths, obfuscated truths and manufactured truths. The latter three truths are also known as fiction, or lies. All these earthly truths or lies, compared to God’s truth, are presumably unremarkable. Yet they are powerful, for all human decisions and lives are based on them, and so too, is the state of the world.
As a result, the world is not utopian. It is not unlivable either. Some, in fact, live quite comfortably and happily while complaining intermittently, even bitterly. Therefore, to no one’s surprise, everyone seems to be able to imagine a better place, and a worse one. The fact that people have such visions suggests that life on earth may not be all there is with nothing preceding it and nothing afterward, and that an existence could very well take place beyond our planetary sphere and our earthly lives. These imaginary places are not just places but also states of mind. At one extreme is heaven, a place of peace and complete fulfillment, at the other, hell, a place of torment and unquenchable desires. I think God’s truth would be clear at either destination. That does not help since I would already be dead and it could be too late.
Earlier I was thinking that it would be great if I can know God’s truth but it would not be a tragedy if I did not. The paragraph I just finished changed my mind. Now I am dying to know God’s truth. I just hope that I do not have to die first to find out.
Life cannot be that ironic, can it?
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
Making A Difference – Part 3 – Finding God
In a Dantean world, a good person who stands idly by has committed the atoneable sin of Acedia, which is a purgatory away from the ideal. The gap between simply being good and being ideally good is bridgeable by good works. According to John Ciardi, “[w]ere one to give all of his energy and attention to the pursuit of God’s truth, good works would follow automatically.” [1]
John Ciardi did not provide a list of those good works nor did he elaborate on God’s truth, but I have to know what good works are before I can decide if I am capable of accomplishing them so as to make a difference. Since knowledge of good works can be clearly known by pursuing God’s truth, hence the first step is to find God.
Man has spent centuries on this topic, still he is not done, even as societies across the planet are trending away from a contemplative toward a consumerist life, from accepting a divine plan to designing one’s own and from embracing the eternally holy and spiritual to idolizing transient fame. In this environment, God is invisible in everyday life and the good that is everywhere is a thankless entitlement and taken for granted. Therefore, if the good, like the air, is not considered a part of God’s creation, then God cannot be found.
Living with the absence of God is easy, but I have never been content with an easy life. That would be boring. I cannot stay intrigued for long by the limits of human possibilities when an unlimited number of other worldly possibilities can be realized.
It is on my terms, in the simplistic world that my mind lives, that I make this log, not so much to add to the countless words on the topic of God, but to find my own way toward a limitless space of physical impossibilities and an endless journey of exploration.
Getting there is a challenge. With imagination, or miracles, it is possible. Over the course of my life, I have been on a few trips, sans drugs of any kind, some asked for, most given. It does not matter whether such experiences were truly real or imagined, they were real to me. Thus, with absolute certainty, I know God exists. It is that simple.
Beyond what I had seen or felt there must be more. My imagination is not powerful enough to take me there. Until God adds new tours to my itinerary, I am left to recall those I had been on before. As unbelievable as those experiences were, they were just tours, not a road map of truths. I have to find that out on my own.
It is by writing here that I hope to be illuminated by grace, that I may find God’s truth.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
John Ciardi did not provide a list of those good works nor did he elaborate on God’s truth, but I have to know what good works are before I can decide if I am capable of accomplishing them so as to make a difference. Since knowledge of good works can be clearly known by pursuing God’s truth, hence the first step is to find God.
Man has spent centuries on this topic, still he is not done, even as societies across the planet are trending away from a contemplative toward a consumerist life, from accepting a divine plan to designing one’s own and from embracing the eternally holy and spiritual to idolizing transient fame. In this environment, God is invisible in everyday life and the good that is everywhere is a thankless entitlement and taken for granted. Therefore, if the good, like the air, is not considered a part of God’s creation, then God cannot be found.
Living with the absence of God is easy, but I have never been content with an easy life. That would be boring. I cannot stay intrigued for long by the limits of human possibilities when an unlimited number of other worldly possibilities can be realized.
It is on my terms, in the simplistic world that my mind lives, that I make this log, not so much to add to the countless words on the topic of God, but to find my own way toward a limitless space of physical impossibilities and an endless journey of exploration.
Getting there is a challenge. With imagination, or miracles, it is possible. Over the course of my life, I have been on a few trips, sans drugs of any kind, some asked for, most given. It does not matter whether such experiences were truly real or imagined, they were real to me. Thus, with absolute certainty, I know God exists. It is that simple.
Beyond what I had seen or felt there must be more. My imagination is not powerful enough to take me there. Until God adds new tours to my itinerary, I am left to recall those I had been on before. As unbelievable as those experiences were, they were just tours, not a road map of truths. I have to find that out on my own.
It is by writing here that I hope to be illuminated by grace, that I may find God’s truth.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Scary News
The Iran Terror Plot is in my opinion as credible as Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Making A Difference – Part 2 - Being Good
Is being a good person, without more, good enough? No, at least not according to Dante Alighieri. Simply being good and rationalizing that things eventually change regardless of the good work, if any, that is done is not enough to get into Paradise without a period of atonement in Purgatory. Through Virgil, Dante said:
" ' That love of good which in the life before
lay idle in the soul is paid for now.
Here Sloth strains at the once-neglected oar.' " [1]
In the notes to these three short lines, John Ciardi explained that sloth “must not be understood as physical laziness or slovenliness but as torpor of the soul which, loving the good, does not pursue it actively enough,” and that central to Sloth is Acedia. “Acedia, however,” he said, “is not simply the failure to perform good works for others, though it readily involves that failure. It is, more specifically, the failure to pay enough attention to the good, to make enough demands upon oneself. Were one to give all of his energy to the pursuit of God’s truth, good works would follow automatically. Acedia may consist in being too torpid to arrive at a vision of the good, or in achieving that vision but neglecting to pursue it.” [2]
Like everything in life, there is a choice. Having almost surrendered to my fears of failure and success and frozen in my status quo, I can only go so far in being good but not doing good works. If that means a lengthy purgatory but no eternal hell, still it would not be easy, I would need to die to truly regret it.
However, should I desire to shorten my stay in Purgatory, I must know what good means in order to pay enough attention to it and know what good deeds are in order to do them.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Canto XVII, p.430, lines 85-87. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
[2] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433-34. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
" ' That love of good which in the life before
lay idle in the soul is paid for now.
Here Sloth strains at the once-neglected oar.' " [1]
In the notes to these three short lines, John Ciardi explained that sloth “must not be understood as physical laziness or slovenliness but as torpor of the soul which, loving the good, does not pursue it actively enough,” and that central to Sloth is Acedia. “Acedia, however,” he said, “is not simply the failure to perform good works for others, though it readily involves that failure. It is, more specifically, the failure to pay enough attention to the good, to make enough demands upon oneself. Were one to give all of his energy to the pursuit of God’s truth, good works would follow automatically. Acedia may consist in being too torpid to arrive at a vision of the good, or in achieving that vision but neglecting to pursue it.” [2]
Like everything in life, there is a choice. Having almost surrendered to my fears of failure and success and frozen in my status quo, I can only go so far in being good but not doing good works. If that means a lengthy purgatory but no eternal hell, still it would not be easy, I would need to die to truly regret it.
However, should I desire to shorten my stay in Purgatory, I must know what good means in order to pay enough attention to it and know what good deeds are in order to do them.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Canto XVII, p.430, lines 85-87. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
[2] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 433-34. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Making A Difference - Part 1 - What Difference Does It Make?
There are so many things I can think of doing that can make a difference in the lives of those who have big dreams but little opportunity, but I am a loner trapped in my fear of failure as well as of success. Such fears do not subside with wisdom or over time. Rather, they immobilize the will. Action cannot arise without an active will. Hence, status quo has reigned over me.
An acceptable status quo can be quite comfortable. As much as I would like to act on my impulses, a certain voice within has taken them away. Perhaps what I need is a “partner-in-crime” to free me from the shackles of comfort and embark on an adventure that is both uncharted and unpredictable.
The question then becomes whether I would enjoy being a dice-throwing mover and shaker? I think I might. Otherwise I would not be entertaining the possibility. [1]
What about having the best of both worlds, being comfortable in my status quo and engaging in action that could make a difference? I suppose that can be accomplished by existing vicariously in a fantasy world unrewarded by the depths of human interaction and the realities of passion. In essence, I would have to be an intellectual. There is a catch, however. An intelligent intellectual’s life is sterile and an unintelligent intellectual’s life is futile, neither of which sounds promising.
Not all is doomed. Intellectual dishonesty provides a silver lining. Using time as its friend, it concludes that things change with or without my doing. Even if my will could dictate an action that would alter people’s lives today, the people still living tomorrow would begin their morning unraveling and reforming what had occurred yesterday. So, what difference does it make?
In the end, perhaps it is not so much what we do but who we are that ought to be of concern.
[1] I re-read this paragraph on May 29, 2013, and I am in shock. I was toying with the disgusting thought of being a mover and shaker? How could that be unless the work was done in the service of God.. I would rather spend time in prayer and reading and re-reading the Divine Comedy by Dante, Confessions by Saint Augustine and works written on Francis of Assisi. That is not Acedia, is it?
An acceptable status quo can be quite comfortable. As much as I would like to act on my impulses, a certain voice within has taken them away. Perhaps what I need is a “partner-in-crime” to free me from the shackles of comfort and embark on an adventure that is both uncharted and unpredictable.
The question then becomes whether I would enjoy being a dice-throwing mover and shaker? I think I might. Otherwise I would not be entertaining the possibility. [1]
What about having the best of both worlds, being comfortable in my status quo and engaging in action that could make a difference? I suppose that can be accomplished by existing vicariously in a fantasy world unrewarded by the depths of human interaction and the realities of passion. In essence, I would have to be an intellectual. There is a catch, however. An intelligent intellectual’s life is sterile and an unintelligent intellectual’s life is futile, neither of which sounds promising.
Not all is doomed. Intellectual dishonesty provides a silver lining. Using time as its friend, it concludes that things change with or without my doing. Even if my will could dictate an action that would alter people’s lives today, the people still living tomorrow would begin their morning unraveling and reforming what had occurred yesterday. So, what difference does it make?
In the end, perhaps it is not so much what we do but who we are that ought to be of concern.
[1] I re-read this paragraph on May 29, 2013, and I am in shock. I was toying with the disgusting thought of being a mover and shaker? How could that be unless the work was done in the service of God.. I would rather spend time in prayer and reading and re-reading the Divine Comedy by Dante, Confessions by Saint Augustine and works written on Francis of Assisi. That is not Acedia, is it?
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