You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Imagination’ category.
Remember Pearl Harbor, 1941/Remember Benghazi Too
It is cold and the sky is clear, the colors true and the mountains firm and sure. December and the Son is near. Despite the public nonsense, it is Christmas time … and Holy Silence is here.
# # #
Man … a wanderer and wayfarer … in search of a … holy place, a center and source of indefectible life …
the Irish monks “… simply floated off to sea, abandoning themselves to wind and current, in the hope of being led to the place of solitude which God himself would pick for them …”
Walker Percy, in “From Pilgrimage to Crusade”
+ + +
Have you seen your life as a pilgrimage? Have you imagined it so? Have you been given to live what God has given? Are you so blessed by the grace of that gift to come to that place He chose for you?
Live properly and fully lived, life is a pilgrimage. And I have come to realize this as I come to my 73rd year this month.
Yes, I have been overcome by the length of time and its passing speed, but more so the unusual continuity and scope of my life … from betrayal and poverty, to death and homelessness, to conversion and many who loved me to that place … In it all I see my gifts of interest in others, and the will to survive life’s constant and bitter combat and the desire for God in all of it.
Lately I have sought peace and quiet after years of battles – defense of others with my lawyer’s trade and growing faith – seeking truth and a just result … standing alone as loneliness prepared me so.
Seeing life as a pilgrim’s journey is a blessing that overwhelms, producing tears of wonder for the divine gift of consistency that was in me and this life so on track to be just what I had been made to be.
Imagine the innate mystery of consistency and the companionship of the right values and the best goals of service to others … a life like the Irish Monks submission to the winds and currents of a life Godly given. Imagine too the sight of God in those who loved me to this place. My shepherds … my shepherds – so many, so many … angels given, angles given …
Looking back now I see one astonishing grace – that I was given to accept life as it presented and to do so without complaint or bitter feeling – but rather to accept it as what it was – the gift of challenges that built with each hard event courage, wisdom and greater strength, greater depth, greater faith, greater insight and the reward of solitude, certainty of the soul and peace which conquers all conflict. Once lonely, I could stand alone because of Him … I am who Am.
A pilgrimage – previously unbeknownst to me. But for the grace to walk one step at a time over hills and through dark valleys for all these years I would not know how grace delivered consistency to me … and now I see that God has done as God intended … and my unwitting collaboration with His Desire for me … grace … grace … grace – the mystery of grace.
Looking back I see through tears of awe and humility for I have done by the Grace of God what God has asked of me – simply to journey as a pilgrim would.
I pray you know the same.
Do not get bogged down in the daily voices of nonsense – they hold no sway, no mystery they.
Shalom.
O taste and see the Lord is good …
Ps 34:8
+ + +
Tasting and seeing. Are these not acts of experience … of ingesting, of taking into oneself?
Yes. Of course, they are.
Is this not exactly the essence of the Incarnation? Is this not the essence of Christ in human form? Is this not the message Jesus brings to his peers, his neighbors, the strangers he encountered, the people of authority, the wealthy and the poor of his day, the well and the ill?
Is this not the message he brings to us?
We are to experience God. Ingest God. In this experience we close the gap between the Creator and the created. This is God’s intention in offering Himself in Christ.
Believe me, once you come to understand that it is the experience of God that is offered to you – you will not be burdened by the weight of this world, its trials and trivial activities, its gossip, its corruptions, its temptations, its hostilities, its divisions, its anxieties and its evil.
The experience of God will change the way you live, bring you above the quarrels of those who do not have that experience.
In the experience of God is contentment – no matter the storms that swirl about you. In the experience of God the words of God are fulfilled in you.
Yes, we are made to taste and see God. In this we understand St. Athanasius who said, “God became man so that man might become God.” Yes, we will see that we dwell in God, that we are One with God – divided and lost no more. Does Jesus not show us exactly this!!!
Taste and see.
Shalom.
Oh, Goody! U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, (Democrat, N.Y.) is introducing legislation today to decriminalize marijuana under federal law. It is reported that in the legislation there will be special federal funding to assist women, racial minorities and homosexuals in entering the marijuana business. (Apparently, hetrosexual White males do quite well in this business as is.)
Chuck Schumer. What a guy! Wears his eyeglasses on the tip of his nose (the old Ben Franklin look). My pause with Dear Charles rest on this: bifocals, Chuckie!!! We are way past the 18th Century, Charles – come and join us. By the way, be careful with the kite and the metal key in thunderstorms … don’t want you getting hurt.
The two worlds, the divine and the human, can be pictured only as distinct from each other – different as life and death, as day and night. The hero ventures out of the land we know into darkness … his return is described as coming out of that yonder zone. Nevertheless – the two kingdoms are actually one. The realm of the gods is a forgotten dimension of the world we know … the exploration of that dimension … is the whole sense of the deed of the hero.
Joseph Campbell, in The Hero of a Thousand Faces
+ + +
Easter approaches. But do we think of Christ the Hero who joins again the divine and the human in “the two kingdoms that are actually one?”
Yes, this is the time for our unification of the divine with the human – a reminder that we live in but one kingdom – whole and divine … that we are made whole and divine!
I am often struck at how it is that we live as if there is no recorded human story over all these years of human existence and how in our ignorance we miss the obvious truth and significance of the essential and repeated stories of the Hero, the sacrifice – the rule of the Divine over all from Age to Age.
Our Easter celebration occurs in many forms in varied cultures, religious narratives and ancient stories – making it all the more True, and making us in our ignorance all the more in need of wisdom and sight that is not blinded by our badly mistaken assessment of our own importance.
In our political life we are trapped in the daily event – unable to connect history’s dots. We live so superficially – and listen to the most inane dribble day to day. In this small frame of mind we fumble about, pontificate, content to be doomsayers, hopeless, foolishly assertive grand problem-solvers, faithless.
Shortly after the above passage Campbell questions the Hero who returns, thus: “Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of heavenly bliss?” He notes it is just as easy to “commit the whole community to the devil.” Yet, he notes for the Hero comes “the work of representing eternity in time, and perceiving in time eternity.”
Christ descended into darkness for three days and arose and, then, returned to us so we might know eternity in time, and time in eternity. But are we governed daily by the Hero’s selfless deed?
In Easter we meet reality. But do we live this reality? That is the critical, life-changing, life-saving question. That is what you face at Easter – that one and only eternal question – that which governs mortal life and time, and eternity.
Shalom.
Hillary Kills Feminism. Well, the poor-as-church-mouse Miss Hillary is at it again. Traveling in India she tells us that she lost the election because White Women were directed by their husbands, male bosses and sons to vote for Donald Trump.
There you have it – the end of Feminism! After years of listening to feminist nonsense and their howling at the moon – Feminism has achieved this one amazing thing: the White Women among their ranks now do what their husbands, male bosses and sons command! Guess that puts an end to that “Cause.” Take a bow, Ladies.
With Feminism dead, can gender studies be far behind?
To maintain monastic culture, monks limit their contact with the surrounding culture by means of cloister or separation …
Hugh Feiss, in Essential Monastic Wisdom
+ + +
Separation from existing culture in order to maintain one’s values, virtues – indeed to stay free of insanity, brutality, immorality and a range of toxic disordered and destructive dispositions in culture is a sacred act.
Monks have pursued such separation for good reason over the centuries. We see in this practice – necessity, common sense, faith, peace and preservation.
A sacred separation comes from maintaining a critical eye on existing culture. When cultures destroy people, institutions and what is good, those who seek healthy and peaceful existence separate.
In separation one preserves heart, mind and soul.
In separation one spends time carefully – at work, in quiet, in community, in silence, in thought and prayer – while the world about turns on itself much as Syrian bombing of unarmed civilians does today or as the American Left does by destroying standard identification of gender in favor of disintegration, confusion, disorder, untruth which they much prefer.
In separation there is no more gossip, useless “news,” talking heads, daily destruction of what is good and essential to peaceful existence.
In separation: prayer emerges, reading too, careful listening, care of self and others, soft discourse, contemplation, faith comes alive, consciousness of God is daily sustenance.
In separation you meet yourself, become re-assembled, restored to wholeness – stripped of the “needs” of the frantic culture. In separation, life is simpler … life is life.
In separation: God, your own self, your thoughts, others and all that is under heaven.
Shalom.
Condolesse Rice wants to “modernize” the Second Amendment. Easy for her to say – she’s among the elites — life for them does not carry the burdens the rest of us face. Perhaps, Ms. Rice might think of the unarmed civilians in Syria whose government is bombing them daily, killing them – men, women and children.
A little note to Ms. Rice – maybe you might want to civilize people before you “modernize” the Second Amedment. Those of us who are not in “the elite” live far different lives than you do. In short words – put a sock in it, no one needs to hear from you.
What (other than pride) makes you think you know anything and must be heard from?
A very jumbled schedule today – so a late post. My apologies.
# # #
A good life does not require that we think less of ourselves, but that we think of ourselves less.
Bob Sylvester
+ + +
We need not think less of ourselves to be good people. Rather, we need only to think of ourselves less.
Being a servant does not mean diminishing yourself – rather the point of service is to put others first – to serve those in need of help. We serve best when we preserve our sacred value, protect our God-given dignity and act on that.
Today we see people acting as if serving others through government policy is the ultimate form of service. In these pursuits – the government takes money from people to hire employees to manage the distribution of money or services to others. There is little sacrifice in this. No one offers themselves to another and pays a personal cost, nor is the actual experience of personal servitude realized.
In giving we are embellished spiritually because we humble ourselves so others might be assisted, receive our care, concern, love and attention.
I often say to others: in my lifetime secular culture has diminished both imagination and intimacy – robbed life of its spiritual content, numbed us to our full humanity – created distance between man and God.
When we do experience the capacity to serve, we draw closer to our sacred personhood – the experience of knowing service as Christ knew service.
With your dignity in tow, serve with humility … Yes, thinking of self less makes us whole – amplifies our sacred being.
Shalom.
May you always walk in sunshine.
May you never want for more.
May Irish angels rest their wings right beside your door.
An Irish Blessing
+ + +
Wishing each of you the very best of life in this coming new year.
Seek God each day. His presence is always to be known and felt. Learn from the challenges – they teach best of all.
Thank you for reading Spirlaw. Writing it allows me to start the day thinking about God, our world and nation and you.
Shalom.
A lie travels halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.
Attributed to Mark Twain
+ + +
Like others, I was not too keen on President Trump’s daily tweeting. Many who take an exception to these tweets focus on Donald Trump the person and voice concern that tweeting is “not presidential,” that his tweets make him look “narcissistic.”
Yet, rather than focus on Mr. Trump think about his election itself and what it tells you about the state of our culture and our politics.
Donald Trump beat a wide range of Republican contenders to win the nomination and beat a well-known an established political figure in the general election.
As to his Republican challengers: he beat the Bush family candidate, Senators, a former CEO, a noted and accomplished surgeon, the Governors of Ohio and Wisconsin and others. In doing so he ran a Populist campaign that spoke to the middle class and attracted disaffected middle class Democrats. He attracted Catholics and Evangelicals.
As to the general election he beat the candidate of the Left, the media, the academy, the feminists, the unions, the inside-Washington crowd, the homosexual cabal, Hollywood, the entertainment industry, the abortionists, anarchists, atheists, major newspapers, race-conscious advocates, the tech industry billionaires, Washington lobbyists and the entrenched Democrats in the massive federal bureaucracy, and the professional pols in both the Republican and Democrat Parties.
Think about it. His election tells you something about America today. It surely says – discontent is brewing. Indeed, the divisions generated by the “identity politics” of the Left have succeeded and widening the divide between people in this country. That division creates two groups: the elites/insiders and the rest of us.
This is where tweets come in.
Donald Trump’s tweets are a remarkably able and inexpensive way to offset the daily “news” and “commentary” owned by the array of Leftist and others mentioned above.
His tweets are strategic and very effective – they are the truth putting on its shoes before the lie can take flight.
Like it or not, it is a brilliant stroke employed by an outsider and underdog and the “basket of deplorables” dig it big time.
Indeed, it makes one ask – are we seeing the Left being exposed to light, and becoming unglued in the process? If we are, one might see a swing back to the middle and normalcy – and the demise of the Democrat Left and all their noisy radical cohorts.
Be careful not to fixate on one aspect of a very interesting picture. There is always more to unusual events than merely one factor.
Shalom.
Postscript – If you wonder how faith relates to the above – remember faith plays out in the context of culture as it is composed at any point in time and as it evolves and devolves over time. That is surely reflected in the history of Christianity. It is no less so today and seeing things like the use of tweets as a means of communication are part of our present composition.
When it comes to faith, “The heart has reasons that reason does not know,” Pascal says. Those reasons … can become known to the mind … and insight and understanding is what happens when reasons of the heart are known to the mind.
John S. Dunne, in The Circle Dance of Time
+ + +
So begins John Dunne’s concise recitation of the human’s natural drive to find life’s meaning. Yes, the human being has a natural spiritual drive to find beyond the limits of the mind and reason the transcendent nature of this life and the next.
Our present age prompts me to ask: have we diminished this natural quest? Are we further from fulfillment of our human promise? Are we less than we are made to be? Are our addictions, homicides, suicides, broken marriages and disordered lives, mistreatment of unborn children, fractured families, sexual assaults and gross sexual disorientations not an indication that we are less than whole humans in a culture that is far less than well?
Recently Sean Parker, the former President of Facebook, talked publically about how he and others who initially developed Facebook knew that they were developing a product which would be “addictive” to its users – especially to children who used it. Indeed, we see now suicides among its teens users, use of Facebook to “bully” and attack and exile others. And, no one held to account for the damage caused, lives lost.
Aside for asking us to what degree is technology harmful as it is presently developed and used … yet, another question emerges and it is this: Have we lost the capacity to know the reasons of the heart that exceed reason and the mind? Could we even understand John Dunne or Pascal?
Asking these two questions asks this: do we know the endless stories recorded throughout human history which illuminate the meaning and purpose of this life and beyond? Do we understand who man is? Who woman is? Who the child is? What a marriage is? What a family is? What a community is? Honor? Virtue? Fellowship? Courage? Selfless sacrifice is? Do we experience The Divine? Imagine eternal existence?
Once we did. Now one wonders if anyone understands that there is a relationship between Buddha’s victory over the Bo Tree and his consequential view of transcendent reality? Understand Dante’s vision of the Triune God in the Celestial Rose? Or know of the foretelling of Christ’s crucifixion in the ancient German story of the pagan Othin who hung on a tree and in this penetrated darkness?
My point? This: have we lost our way to the reasons of the heart?
Does a nation of addictive tweeters lose God and in losing God lose the substance of Self … become reduced to mere mortal adjuncts to small machines which capture us and dull life, and impair much of what is human and hence transcendent?
Think about this. Don’t go gently into that costly dark night.
Shalom.
Postscript – Many among us state this view: technology makes life more complicated not less so. The machines load more and more functions onto smaller and smaller platforms sold at higher and higher prices. A phone for $1000.00 dollars. Progress? I think not.
I have come to two firm observations. One, just as the computer did NOT deliver a “paperless” office, technology has not made life easier – rather it has captured the human being and stole his and her time. Two, life in the country among the cows beats being captured by machines … and it ain’t even close.
The object of life is surely not to have others take your time from you.
O God, you are my God, for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting.
Ps 63:2
+ + +
Yesterday I began my day with men who attend a Saturday early morning gathering at a wonderful Catholic parish in Kensington, Maryland. The men of varied ages attend a year-long program focused on developing their faith and growing in it. It is a wonderful experience that includes a short video presentation with the men then recessing to a host of tables to share their thoughts on the subject matter of the video.
Yesterday’s video focused us on the simple question: Is there a God or is there not a God?
My table mates (eight men, counting myself) affirmed easily that there is a God – but most striking was this: their soul was thirsting for God. These men ranged in age from early to mid-30’s to 70-plus. All were family men, fathers and husbands.
What struck me so very deeply was this: these men were seeking God in the very manner that people in the 13th century and earlier sought God.
They asked questions much as the St. Thomas Aquinas might. Deep probative questions. Their desire for God was vital to them – not because they themselves had burdens or carried sins that caused suffering – no, they sought God because they knew a relationship with God was critical to their existence, their contentment, their service of others, their life’s meaning and their ability to love, understand, find meaning and purpose in life.
I add, most importantly, they sought God because they experienced that faith, and God were under siege in America. They had a sense that living a life of faith, God and Church was under attack today in this nation.
Honestly, I saw their desire, their urgency – their hope … and affirmation that God was the center of their being and that neither their faith nor God would be abandoned or exiled.
I saw in these men the metaphysical reality of the first 1400 years of Christianity.
I saw the probing question and longing that affirmed that there is a God and the desire for a relation with God resides within us no matter the utterances and hostilities of claims and actions of the godless among us. Good news!
Alas, it can be said that the Psalms speak today:
My body pines for you like a dry, weary land without water. (Ps. 63)
Truth never fades. Truth can never be denied, extinguished. In the midst of challenge – God is closest and we are most deeply engaged. Good News … in troublesome times.
Shalom.
Spirlaw 