This is a year of personal awakening, venturing out of my make-belief world into one full of disappointments, inhabited by certain people existing under the guise of progressive liberalism while acting out their relentless passive aggression in petty power trips to benefit their own self-serving interests. Their abundance of envy, bitterness and/or hypocrisy together with their unforgiving nature in life may earn them a place in a Dantean-like inferno upon death, eternally watching the wasting away of their maggot-rejected bodies cheapened by the disdain they continuously and willfully harbored against God’s other children.
While few, if any, are completely selfless, unconditionally loving and free from sin, those with the compunction to self-examine one’s inner cruelty and the heart to exercise a modicum of humility and compassion and pray for God’s grace to grow in His image may one day see their prayer answered. [1]
This is also a year of personal realization, among the many lesser disappointments is one of the greater, regretting my youthful years when I wore a coolly confident exterior, leaving a trail of broken hearts while wallowing in inexplicable depression and coping with intractable anguish from the unfathomable depths of anxiety. For I had not loved well, enough or at all, I am now punished by an unfulfilled desire to know how my life would have been enriched had I lived wisely and learned patiently rather than judging harshly and prematurely. To the extent that I am able to seek redemption through prayer, I have, by asking Mother Mary to protect and love those who had given me the chance to love them. A chance to love is a gift so simple and so pure that I was, and perhaps still am, incapable of comprehending and accepting. While I am sure that Mother Mary’s love and embrace, even for a moment, would make up for a lifetime of mine, I remain regretful, even if I had been forgiven or forgotten. I am also certain that those beautiful souls for whom I yearn are far better off and their earthly lives far more happily lived without me. [2]
Another one of the greater personal disappointments, an on-going one and probably the greatest disappointment of all, is my refusal to answer yes to God’s calling because I am afraid of my certain failure to meet such high expectations. Instead, I have chosen not to fail by not trying at all, which in itself is a failure: the failure to try. Freely trapped between these two suffocating failures, salvation at once seems elusive even as salvation imagined seemed possible. [3], [4] & [5]
[1] For everybody, as well as for the reprehensible, this Fatima prayer is helpful: “O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy. Amen.”
[2] “Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!
“Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.” http://www.carols.org.uk/auld_lang_syne_song.htm
[3] In Your infinite justice, please grant us Your infinite mercy. Amen.
[4] “O My Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of Your mercy. Amen.”
[5] Perhaps there is still time. Lord, please grant me the vision and the voice, the courage and the confidence, the strength and the stamina to do Your will. Amen.
Showing posts with label abstruse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abstruse. Show all posts
Friday, December 30, 2011
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Blessings In Disguise -- The US And The EU Debt Crises
While I believe it is legitimate to blame the debt crises on leadership incompetence and societal lethargy, pork-barrel spending and unrealistic entitlements, I also think that the current global economic slowdown is a temporary blessing. The alternate extreme is a race to own the last bits of natural resources left on this planet leading to an ultimate world war. It will be at the last moment that the arrogant in life will show their cowardice and the poor in spirit will finally have true peace. But it does not have to end this way. There is hope that this human race still has time to restore a symbiotic relationship with this planet and with one another but human nature does not usually change quickly or quickly enough to bring about a truly civilized world until it is too late.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Making A Difference – Part 7 – Final Thoughts
Something that sounds simple is seldom easy to accomplish.
In his commencement speech at Stanford on June 12, 2005, Steve Jobs said, “I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do” but people still take jobs they do not love and stay married even after the love is gone.
Circa 1982, a little schoolgirl in Oakland raised her hand and asked Mrs. Nancy Reagan what to do if someone offered her drugs. Mrs. Reagan responded that she was to “just say no” but 29 years later the war on drugs is still ongoing.
In my recent search for God’s truth, the pursuit of which would automatically lead to good works that cure acedia [1], the revelation was simply love but knowing it has not transformed my life.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 434. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003. This is where the translator wrote that “[a]cedia … 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 and attention to the pursuit of God’s truth, good works would follow automatically [emphasis added]” and where my inspiration to seek out God’s truth came from. John Ciardi continued to state that “[a]cedia may consist in being too torpid to arrive at a vision of the good, or in achieving that vision but neglecting to pursue it.” This I disagree with because I believe that we are born with a vision of the good. It requires no effort to achieve and torpidity does not prevent it from existence. Only when one freely allows oneself to be contaminated by evil does one’s vision of the good go blind. In other words, to claim that a vision of the good is the result of a willful achievement is to suggest that evil predominates naturally unless free will replaces it with good. That is plainly wrong for life springs from all that is good and remains good until evil is permitted to destroy it.
In his commencement speech at Stanford on June 12, 2005, Steve Jobs said, “I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do” but people still take jobs they do not love and stay married even after the love is gone.
Circa 1982, a little schoolgirl in Oakland raised her hand and asked Mrs. Nancy Reagan what to do if someone offered her drugs. Mrs. Reagan responded that she was to “just say no” but 29 years later the war on drugs is still ongoing.
In my recent search for God’s truth, the pursuit of which would automatically lead to good works that cure acedia [1], the revelation was simply love but knowing it has not transformed my life.
[1] Alighieri, Dante. The Divine Comedy. The Purgatorio, Notes, p. 434. Trans. John Ciardi. New York: New American Library, 2003. This is where the translator wrote that “[a]cedia … 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 and attention to the pursuit of God’s truth, good works would follow automatically [emphasis added]” and where my inspiration to seek out God’s truth came from. John Ciardi continued to state that “[a]cedia may consist in being too torpid to arrive at a vision of the good, or in achieving that vision but neglecting to pursue it.” This I disagree with because I believe that we are born with a vision of the good. It requires no effort to achieve and torpidity does not prevent it from existence. Only when one freely allows oneself to be contaminated by evil does one’s vision of the good go blind. In other words, to claim that a vision of the good is the result of a willful achievement is to suggest that evil predominates naturally unless free will replaces it with good. That is plainly wrong for life springs from all that is good and remains good until evil is permitted to destroy it.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Making A Difference – Part 6 – What Kind Of Love?
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.
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.
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.
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?
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Heaven Imagined
You step into an empty amphitheater, as large as you imagine it to be. You are there alone. It does not matter where you sit, what look like or how you dress. In a moment you will feel awkward, self-conscious and out of place.
In the blink of an eye, the entire place is filled, packed with angels, with no air space in between them or in between you and the ones surrounding you. They are assembled in concentric circles, each higher and wider than the one above. You can tell that they are not just one layer deep but you do not know how many layers deep behind you they go. They are spirits; you are human. They are clothed in ethereal white. Perhaps you have on a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and some sneakers. You have never felt so foreign but no angel considers you foreign. Knowing that does nothing for you. You are not at ease. You want to shift your weight to get into a more comfortable position but you notice all the angels are remaining still in their places. You dare not move.
They start to sing. They sing in unison. You have never heard anything so beautiful, so perfect, so uplifting, whatever the sounds you hear and whatever you understand their words to be. You close your eyes. You know you are in heaven. You think to yourself: this is absolute perfection.
Just as it could not in your imagination get better, it does. A single voice penetrates and complements the chorus with a song, melodious and harmonious, a voice so pure and clear it cleanses you from the inside out. You imagine the effect to be the same had it been a cascade of cool crystal water from the very first rain ever, extracted from deep inside a glacier somewhere, frozen in time but melted for you to drink and bathe in to purify your body, mind and soul.
While you are being refreshed and renewed, the solo voice diminuendoes and merges with the chorus. You once again close your eyes, feeling lightness all over, unburdened by anchors of earthly concerns and the weight of sins. You become deeply entranced by the angelic voices surrounding you. By losing yourself, you join the angels and the music.
As you have imperceptibly transformed, so has the beautiful music subtly grown. It has become more layered, more complex, more encompassing, grander and more beautiful than what you believed to be perfection to start with. You open your eyes. The amphitheater has become bigger. Much, much bigger. You no longer see the top of it nor can you see the edge of the highest circle and you have no clue how many more layers it now has behind you, but you can see that it is packed with angels, far too many to even think of counting.
Your visual and auditory senses are overwhelmed. You close your eyes once more as the heavenly music continues to bring you total fulfillment. You feel lifted. You are lifted.
Abruptly, the tempo changes. You feel the gravities of earth, life and sins set in. You return to reality. In it, some of the noises you hear are lies, hypocrisy and rationale based on intellectual dishonesty and some of the things you see include those people who hunger for greed or self-importance and those who betray their conscience or pawn their souls to evil.
You pine to return to heaven. There are ways to get there.
The alternative is unbearable.
In the blink of an eye, the entire place is filled, packed with angels, with no air space in between them or in between you and the ones surrounding you. They are assembled in concentric circles, each higher and wider than the one above. You can tell that they are not just one layer deep but you do not know how many layers deep behind you they go. They are spirits; you are human. They are clothed in ethereal white. Perhaps you have on a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and some sneakers. You have never felt so foreign but no angel considers you foreign. Knowing that does nothing for you. You are not at ease. You want to shift your weight to get into a more comfortable position but you notice all the angels are remaining still in their places. You dare not move.
They start to sing. They sing in unison. You have never heard anything so beautiful, so perfect, so uplifting, whatever the sounds you hear and whatever you understand their words to be. You close your eyes. You know you are in heaven. You think to yourself: this is absolute perfection.
Just as it could not in your imagination get better, it does. A single voice penetrates and complements the chorus with a song, melodious and harmonious, a voice so pure and clear it cleanses you from the inside out. You imagine the effect to be the same had it been a cascade of cool crystal water from the very first rain ever, extracted from deep inside a glacier somewhere, frozen in time but melted for you to drink and bathe in to purify your body, mind and soul.
While you are being refreshed and renewed, the solo voice diminuendoes and merges with the chorus. You once again close your eyes, feeling lightness all over, unburdened by anchors of earthly concerns and the weight of sins. You become deeply entranced by the angelic voices surrounding you. By losing yourself, you join the angels and the music.
As you have imperceptibly transformed, so has the beautiful music subtly grown. It has become more layered, more complex, more encompassing, grander and more beautiful than what you believed to be perfection to start with. You open your eyes. The amphitheater has become bigger. Much, much bigger. You no longer see the top of it nor can you see the edge of the highest circle and you have no clue how many more layers it now has behind you, but you can see that it is packed with angels, far too many to even think of counting.
Your visual and auditory senses are overwhelmed. You close your eyes once more as the heavenly music continues to bring you total fulfillment. You feel lifted. You are lifted.
Abruptly, the tempo changes. You feel the gravities of earth, life and sins set in. You return to reality. In it, some of the noises you hear are lies, hypocrisy and rationale based on intellectual dishonesty and some of the things you see include those people who hunger for greed or self-importance and those who betray their conscience or pawn their souls to evil.
You pine to return to heaven. There are ways to get there.
The alternative is unbearable.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Light & Shade
A discussion of light givers and takers in a previous post ("Giving Light" on August 30) is incomplete without identifying the shades. Shades are so consumed by evil that they have little redemptive possibility. Since the slightest possibility of redemption does exist, they are not quite evil’s surrogates.
Shades are by nature dark, as in lightless. They can be thought of as invisible 2-D shadows that depend on reflected light of the evil to give them 3-D shape. Reflected light is not divine light. It is just the opposite. Since it can be just as bright and virtually indistinguishable from true light, it is therefore absolutely deceitful.
When a shadow takes on reflected light, it assumes human form and like the reflected light from which it arises, the deceit is absolute and the entity is in all respects human even though it continues to have the character of a shade. In its human shape, a shade continues to absorb light. The more light it absorbs, the more attention it gets and the more powerful it becomes. A consistent betrayer of truth, a shade uses falsehoods to manipulate light givers into giving it light.
By the time the truth is known and light givers withdraw their light, the shade would usually have already wreaked havoc and done irreparable damage. To avoid being tricked by shades is to recognize them at the outset, but a light giver who continues to shed light on a shade to nurture its existence after its evil nature has been revealed is in the process of becoming a shade himself.
Shades stand apart by the intensity of evilness in the reflected light on which they continuously depend but telling which human is a truly a shade is not easy for even light givers are at times lit by reflected light for evil permeates all.
So what is reflected light? Think of it as a constant charge of evil energy from hell. And how does a shade use it? A hypothetical can illustrate this: a politician (a lightless figure) relying on the 9-11 disaster (through an act with enough evil energy and light to outlast human history) to be seen (becomes a hell-lit 3-D human shade).
On the other hand, a man of cloth using the crucifixion of Christ to preach to his congregation is not a shade because the crucifixion was not an act that was evil in origin. It was a preordained salvific event representing the death of original sin, the end of eternal death and the return to a place of lasting peace. Moreover, unlike a shade using an evil event to underscore its own importance, a sermon on the crucifixion does not draw attention to the speaker; rather, attention is directed away from the speaker toward the event giving it meaning, so that those listening might internalize its holy purposes.
However, in another instance, a man of cloth could certainly be a shade. When one talks ceaselessly about the need to give to the poor when he himself is adequately hydrated, fed, dressed, housed and insured, and comes under a religion that owns an impressive portfolio of real estate globally and priceless objects of art when there are still homeless people living with thirst, hunger and disease, he is existing in hypocrisy. Since hypocrisy is evil in nature, a preacher who is a hypocrite is therefore a shade, a 2-D shadow with hell's light shining on him giving him 3-D shape. [1.]
Although shades are often found among people with power or influence, including those making money or winning awards off various atrocities of human suffering past or present or created by them, there are shades that are everyday people. For example, a person who always finds the need to put someone down to gain an advantage, stab someone from behind to get ahead or betray someone's trust for improper gain, that person is a shade, for these are things that are either evil in origin or in nature and will therefore give the shade the necessary reflected light to sustain its 3-D constitution.
For any shade that is still in existence, it has a shred of redemptive possibility since it can choose divine light over reflected light to maintain its human form and become a light giver. There are countless ways to obtain divine light for there is no end to goodness but when these ways are ignored in favor of evil’s reflected light, the shade is continuing with its steadfast transformation until it is evil's surrogate at which point no redemption can occur.
[1.] An excerpt of a prayer by the companions of Francis of Assisi after his death seems appropriate here:
"Do not allow that those
who are like you by profession
be unlike you in life."
Armstrong, Regis J. O.F.M. Cap. et.al. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume II, The Founder. Page 392. New York: New York City Press, 2000.
Shades are by nature dark, as in lightless. They can be thought of as invisible 2-D shadows that depend on reflected light of the evil to give them 3-D shape. Reflected light is not divine light. It is just the opposite. Since it can be just as bright and virtually indistinguishable from true light, it is therefore absolutely deceitful.
When a shadow takes on reflected light, it assumes human form and like the reflected light from which it arises, the deceit is absolute and the entity is in all respects human even though it continues to have the character of a shade. In its human shape, a shade continues to absorb light. The more light it absorbs, the more attention it gets and the more powerful it becomes. A consistent betrayer of truth, a shade uses falsehoods to manipulate light givers into giving it light.
By the time the truth is known and light givers withdraw their light, the shade would usually have already wreaked havoc and done irreparable damage. To avoid being tricked by shades is to recognize them at the outset, but a light giver who continues to shed light on a shade to nurture its existence after its evil nature has been revealed is in the process of becoming a shade himself.
Shades stand apart by the intensity of evilness in the reflected light on which they continuously depend but telling which human is a truly a shade is not easy for even light givers are at times lit by reflected light for evil permeates all.
So what is reflected light? Think of it as a constant charge of evil energy from hell. And how does a shade use it? A hypothetical can illustrate this: a politician (a lightless figure) relying on the 9-11 disaster (through an act with enough evil energy and light to outlast human history) to be seen (becomes a hell-lit 3-D human shade).
On the other hand, a man of cloth using the crucifixion of Christ to preach to his congregation is not a shade because the crucifixion was not an act that was evil in origin. It was a preordained salvific event representing the death of original sin, the end of eternal death and the return to a place of lasting peace. Moreover, unlike a shade using an evil event to underscore its own importance, a sermon on the crucifixion does not draw attention to the speaker; rather, attention is directed away from the speaker toward the event giving it meaning, so that those listening might internalize its holy purposes.
However, in another instance, a man of cloth could certainly be a shade. When one talks ceaselessly about the need to give to the poor when he himself is adequately hydrated, fed, dressed, housed and insured, and comes under a religion that owns an impressive portfolio of real estate globally and priceless objects of art when there are still homeless people living with thirst, hunger and disease, he is existing in hypocrisy. Since hypocrisy is evil in nature, a preacher who is a hypocrite is therefore a shade, a 2-D shadow with hell's light shining on him giving him 3-D shape. [1.]
Although shades are often found among people with power or influence, including those making money or winning awards off various atrocities of human suffering past or present or created by them, there are shades that are everyday people. For example, a person who always finds the need to put someone down to gain an advantage, stab someone from behind to get ahead or betray someone's trust for improper gain, that person is a shade, for these are things that are either evil in origin or in nature and will therefore give the shade the necessary reflected light to sustain its 3-D constitution.
For any shade that is still in existence, it has a shred of redemptive possibility since it can choose divine light over reflected light to maintain its human form and become a light giver. There are countless ways to obtain divine light for there is no end to goodness but when these ways are ignored in favor of evil’s reflected light, the shade is continuing with its steadfast transformation until it is evil's surrogate at which point no redemption can occur.
[1.] An excerpt of a prayer by the companions of Francis of Assisi after his death seems appropriate here:
"Do not allow that those
who are like you by profession
be unlike you in life."
Armstrong, Regis J. O.F.M. Cap. et.al. Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, Volume II, The Founder. Page 392. New York: New York City Press, 2000.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Giving Light
Far less people than the many in the world are able to emanate light. Those who can sometimes do not. They have their reasons and any one is good enough. It takes an abundance of energy to give light. Intellect is a requisite, so is knowledge, wisdom and character but none of them is the equivalent of light, but light is all of that and more. They lie beyond the imagination, including the source, and are beyond description. Those who have light know it. It is uncertain if one acquires light or is blessed with it. Even those with it have their challenges.
Not all light is the same but all is desirable. It is doubtful that any single human has all the light. For this reason, givers of light are also takers. Light givers benefit one another when they take from each other. By doing so they become brighter together. Therefore, not all light takers are evil.
Undoubtedly some are. Like a black hole in the universe, these evil ones are insatiable vortices that capture light and extinguish it. Light givers know immediately when the energy that produces light is being sucked out by the evil one, or one of its immediate surrogates, leaving them totally drained if they are lucky enough to get out alive. Then there are those who are just plain vanilla suckers of light, they are the amateurs, who may even be seductive, and light givers who become suckered in would eventually come to a rather painful and perhaps even bitter realization after much tolerance and much time has passed.
Not all light is the same but all is desirable. It is doubtful that any single human has all the light. For this reason, givers of light are also takers. Light givers benefit one another when they take from each other. By doing so they become brighter together. Therefore, not all light takers are evil.
Undoubtedly some are. Like a black hole in the universe, these evil ones are insatiable vortices that capture light and extinguish it. Light givers know immediately when the energy that produces light is being sucked out by the evil one, or one of its immediate surrogates, leaving them totally drained if they are lucky enough to get out alive. Then there are those who are just plain vanilla suckers of light, they are the amateurs, who may even be seductive, and light givers who become suckered in would eventually come to a rather painful and perhaps even bitter realization after much tolerance and much time has passed.
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