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We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the things freely given by God.
1 Cor 2:12
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The foundation of our health and human prosperity is in the Spirit. Yet, the culture we live in promotes the mind as if our well-being resides in the head.
Nay, it resides in the heart and in the soul.
A full life relies on our spiritual development, not our intellectually development. I say this as one who was a college degree, a law degree and two graduate degrees (one in international affairs – American foreign policy and economic policy, and the other in theology).
That said, I make this point: in my career and in my personal life – seeing with the eyes of a Believer made the greatest contribution to my personal and working life.
Plainly speaking – the experiences of my life were more revealing and more instructive because of my spiritual life and its development. I found greater understanding and greater peace – and yes, wisdom – because I cultivated my spiritual development, became more faithful, placed an importance on worship and directed my reading to those things that would help me grow in the Spirit. In doing so, novels revealed truth to me, psychology and cultural criticism, philosophy, comparative mythology, and history opened for me. Likewise biographies of those who traveled hard roads and experienced God were a great help, as were the words of Carl Jung, M.D., and Thomas Merton and Joseph Campbell, and St. Augustine, Thomas Keating and others, and, of course, Scripture.
What is my point? Our culture would have us confine our self to the head, but the brain is a secondary organ and does not lead us exclusively to the greatest and most significant understandings. The heart and soul are the key to a good and satisfying life.
It is the Spirit upon which we ultimately rely and the Spirit enlivens the heart and soul.
Attend to the Spirit, for we are of God – and God is pure Spirit.
Shalom.
Democrats – Another Democrat public official (the Attorney General of New York) resigned because of his history of physical abuse of women. He adds to the list of Democrat money-raisers and politicians who have been exposed as women abusers yet claimed to be champions of women. It would be nice if this was a surprise – but it is not.
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… we must grow up. We can only go forward through the desert of life, making our way painfully over parched and barren ground into increasingly deeper levels of consciousness.
M. Scott Peck, M.D., in Further Along the Road Less Traveled
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Dr. Peck, an esteemed psychiatrist, makes this point at the beginning of his book on life’s journey and he makes it in reference to the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and their partaking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
His foundational point (a common notion as to Adam and Eve’s action taken against God’s instruction) is that the action they took marked the beginning of consciousness Adam and Eve (and humans at-large).
In making this point, Dr. Peck is highlighting that once man hastens off on his own actions he is decidedly self-conscious and in a sense separated from the perfect union with His Creator, creation itself and other people.
Hence the above quote makes this sensible observation: man must grow in health and stability and do so on a barren, challenging terrain in search of understanding himself, others, and the Divine.
We might say – once we assert our own autonomy, we then must come to a greater consciousness to know our wholeness as human beings. In short, to be healthy and full: grow we must. Without this growth – no peace, no union with others – rather: discontent and loneliness.
I leave you with a challenging question: when you look around do you see those who grow or do you see those who resist growth? And then there is this question: of those who grow and those who resist growth, who looks the happier? More content? Wiser?
I suggest to you that the ongoing challenge for human beings to grow and this is a challenge honored often in the breach.
To this I add an observation: growth is painful and people avoid pain. Addictions, ideologies, suicides, adulteries, acts of betrayal and such give us evidence of people avoiding growth. On this point others have noted that evil is presented by those who intentionally reject growth and are so fervent in doing is that they care not at all who they might be hurt in the process of their errant existence. I am sure we have all been injured by these people.
Grow.
Shalom.
North Korea, Nukes and Elites – North Korea seeks our President’s attention to talk about denuclearization, Why? One reason – the hash embargos against North Korea have put that nation on the verge of having no money, no fuel and no food. Another reason, President Trump made it clear that North Korea provocations would be met with decisive force. What is the difference between Trump and his people and the elites some of whom have occupied the White House and positions in foreign affairs? It is this: balls.
Growing up in privilege is no match for growing up on the wrong side of the tracks. That is the difference between hand-to-hand combat as a child and the cushy prep school life followed by Yale or Harvard, Princeton, etc. The former breeds leaders and the latter breeds know-it-alls and “snowflakes.”
Most of the time, we are lost in the past or carried away by future projects or concerns. When we are mindful, touching deeply the present moment, we can see and listen deeply …
Thich Nhat Hanh, in Living Buddha, Living Christ
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Today with all its fury, demands, confusion, transgressions, noise, deceit, foolishness and injuries has a way of capturing us. But we need not be locked into its mischief and destruction. Indeed it is quite unhealthy for us to be captured by all the chaos and malfeasance, the untruths and disorder.
‘Tis much wiser and far healthier to be mindful. To focus on our interior. Seeking quiet and listening to it gives rest, understanding – transcendence, yes, liberation.
In the fury of today, do you hear your breathing? Most would answer, “No.” To them I say: “You are NOT mindful. You have been captured by chaos. You are forfeiting your life – cheating yourself out of the life you have been given. Making yourself sick. Settling for far less than you have been given.”
Cistercian monk Thomas Merton had an affinity for the existential writer Albert Camus. He saw in Camus “a man who … loves the world yet stands apart from it with a critical objectivity which refuses to become involved in its transient fashions and its more manifest absurdities.” (Thomas Merton, in Contemplation in a World in Action).
So many are captured by the chaos. The digital world, much like the organs of mass “communication” (or shall we say “miscommunication“) that sow chaos and confusion – reduce us drastically from whole to but fragments.
Better to hear your breath. Be mindful. Stand apart. Maintain critical objectivity – you can dismiss most of what is going on around you … there are so few healthy voices after all.
Shalom.
To maintain monastic culture, monks limit their contact with the surrounding culture by means of cloister or separation …
Hugh Feiss, in Essential Monastic Wisdom
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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?
The most paradoxical and at the same time unique and characteristic claim made by Christianity is that in the Resurrection of Christ the Lord from the dead, man has completely conquered death, and that “in Christ” the dead will rise again to enjoy eternal life, in spiritualized and transfigured bodies in a totally new creation … Such a fantastic and humanly impossible belief has been generally left in the background by the liberal Christianity of the 19th and 20th centuries … (Emphasis added.)
Thomas Merton, in The New Man
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Well that pretty much explains the roiling discontent many feel in their souls each day and explains the concern one has for their children and grandchildren – their country, Western Civilization and the exile of God from culture. That is to say – we no longer carry at our core the above understanding.
The abandonment or loss of this perspective also explains the errant notions that flood our culture: same-sex marriage, Marxism, feminism, racism (expressed even by those who were once its victims), fanciful ideas of multiple genders, liberal intolerance and the like.
Think about it. Is there any reason for a Believer to adopt any of the popular mantras and divisive dispositions so present in contemporary culture? No. There is not.
If one believes that Christ in His resurrection conquered death, there is no need for doubt, discontent or division. And, yes – Merton is quite right that liberal Christianity have abandoned the unconquerable truth that Christ was Resurrected and as Christians this Resurrection rescues us from all apprehension – furnishes us with certainty, frees us to live fully and in the Spirit.
So in a sense, the unease we see, the hostility and antagonism and their attendant expressions and assertions literally have no place among those who Believe as Christians.
As Merton goes on to say – “Christianity without this fabulous eschatological claim is only a moral system without … spirituality consistency.” I add only “a moral system” at best; for I have seen in my lifetime the weak idea of “ethics” displace morality as surely as man has replaced God in secular culture.
Ironically, in the age of ethics we get endless rules and regulations of all things and the extraordinary result that those who author the rules and regulations seem never to be held to them. Out with morality – and corruption flourishes while individual responsibility, freedom, and accountability of the rule-makers seems to disappear.
Without the recognition of the Resurrection we are (as we now show) but a culture inclined to chaos and decline, the loss of freedom and community, and the sickness of godless existence. Our present trajectory, of course, cannot hold. We are at a critical moment.
Where are you in your thinking and living? Best turn to God and the Truth of the Matter.
Shalom.
Life and death are at war within us. As soon as we are born, we begin at the same time to live and die … If by chance we become fully conscious of it, not only in the flesh and in our emotions but above all in our spirit, we find ourselves involved in a terrible wrestling, an agonia not of questions and answers, but of being and nothingness, spirit and void. (Emphasis added.)
Thomas Merton, in The New Man
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Last night I watched Part One of Ken Burns film on the Second World War. I saw the war from the perspective of the common man and woman, the families in small towns and large cities. It is, of course, a story of all ethnic groups, all races and religions, rich and poor, farmer, factory worker, school teacher, professional. Yes, it is the story of Americans when we were once One and united – neighbors, friends, a community, a proud and patriotic nation – people from foreign shores who arrived to make a new life and seize opportunity in a free society.
Burns shows us what we once were – before we became “fat” and fancy, successful, too expectant, spoiled, too focused on our own welfare and too rooted in demands and divisions from one another.
Once we lived implicitly what Merton describes: we were conscious of our supreme value – yes, of our God-given value – the divine equality of the soul. Friends, this was how we once lived … You see victory in this world and the next comes only to those who live this way.
I grew up on a street with World War II vets in a working class city known for producing more U.S. Marines per capita than any city in the country.
The ethos of our greatest hour is now misplaced. You see its absence in Members of the Congress – in the Flakes, Schumers, Pelosis, Durbins, Waters, et al … in the public chorus of “me first, only me” special pleaders whose arc of complaint stretches from the banal to the bizarre, and among the over-privileged in the entertainment industry and in the lost souls of media.
What we see is clear evidence of a loss of faith – of wisdom, perspective, patience.
In a secular society there is no transcendent purpose, no eternity – no moral context and all-embracing narrative. No – secular life lacks meaning, leaves us shallow and self-absorbed – dependent, unhappy, … with an emptiness that breeds drug use, sexual chaos, hatred and violence. Godlessness, we see, produces self-destruction.
Time to wake up. We have regressed. We lack the honor we once had – and the valor, bravery, virtue, honesty, confidence, integrity and purpose of our recent past.
Shalom.
God abandons only those who abandon themselves, and whoever has the courage shut up his sorrows within his own heart is stronger to fight against it than he who complains. (Emphasis added.)
George Sand, in La Petite Fadette
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Yesterday I spent much of the day alone. That gave me time in all the quiet to think about the joy of seeing my son, his wife and my grandchildren and gave me mind to think about loved ones and friends who have passed away. My mother has now been gone 21 years. I have no siblings. My uncles and their wives are now gone almost as long as my mother. My wife Sylvia will have been gone 40 years this year.
I have spent a great deal of time without people who I loved and who loved me. I have in absolute truth borne the weight of these years alone without complaint. Honestly I have done so courageously – as Sand says I have “shut up the sorrows within (my) heart.”
Against this backdrop I call tell you I never liked complainers. I was born to modest means and soon enough loved ones (grandparents with whom my mother and I lived) died. Yes, each by the time I was just out of the sixth grade. In short order my mother and I were in public housing and poverty took up residence in our reality. Complaining was out of the question. Complaining does no good. It accomplishes nothing. Doing is what problems and hardships demand. Doing makes us stronger, wiser, more cunning, more empowered, more defiant, more confident, more independent.
That said, we live in a nation of complainers. I am so sick of hearing about racism. So sick hearing about income transfers, diversity, the plight of the dependent class, women who feel slighted, poor immigrants, etc. Nothing gets better without parking your sorrows by the roadside and getting after life. Wrong side of the tracks? Show those who might demean you that you can outwork them, are stronger, more determined, bolder, more focused, unbeatable.
In the course of my life I have (despite a learning disability and poverty) graduated from college and law school, earned advanced degrees at Johns Hopkins and Notre Dame, practiced (serving poor clients, mostly), entered religious life, become an Army officer, purchased a home, a car and a small business for my mother, cared for a wife with cancer, raised a son who now has his Ph.D. and a nice wife, two lovely children and a good job where he is valued. Mind you I am no genius. I work. I had no time for complaining – I was a doer.
We tolerate too much whining. Too much complaining. The best we can do for people who complain is this – tell them to be quiet and “get after it.” Better we challenge others to show all the doubters wrong than waste time complaining or listening to their complaints over and again.
As legendary football coach and sidewalk philosopher Lou Holtz says: “Don’t tell people about your problems. Twenty percent don’t want to hear about them – and the remaining 80 percent are glad you have them.”
Shalom.
The NEW Democrat Party. Former Army enlisted clerk and transvestite Bradley Manning who was convicted for the illegal release of thousands of classified security documents and sentenced to 35 years in prison (before being pardoned by President Obama for no particular reason) has announced he/she is running for the U.S. Senate in Maryland against a seated Democrat Senator who has spent (as Democrats do) a lifetime on the public tit. The New Guard is replacing the Old Guard. (Same tit, by the way.) How charming.
This is exactly where the Democrat Party has been driving the bus. George Orwell must be tickled pink – yes, isn’t that the color perfect. The pinkos have more than one screw loose.
Christian monasticism dates from the early part of the fourth century. It sprang up almost simultaneously in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor. While it expressed its inspiration in various concrete forms, all of them shared the same fundamental dedication to the search for God through silence, solitude, simplicity of life-style, and spiritual development. (Emphasis added.)
Thomas Keating, in The Heart of the World
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We live in an overtly secular culture. For the most part our public discourse is godless. Day-to-day there is no shortage of reports of heinous behavior – a father and mother torturing their small child, a ritualistic killing associated with an immigrant gang – one sad and cruel act after another. Likewise we are engaged in one task after another – almost nonstop – day-to-day, week to week, month to month – year after year.
We are not living as a monk lives.
Where they have silence – we have endless noise and chatter. Where they have solitude – we have immersion in the mass. Where they have a simple life – we have a complex life. Where they tend to their spiritual wellbeing – we are dominated by our material existence.
We are NOT monks. But maybe we need to be.
What level of comfort, contentment, peace, good cheer, health and calm does your life in secular culture bring?
On a scale of zero to ten with zero being “none” and ten being “perfectly fulfilled in these things,” my guess is that few among us confidently exceed 5 at best – likely three or four.
Why do I say this? We are otherwise engaged. And this present engagement keeps us from access to our whole and true self – our self as we are made to be: stable, at peace, content, insightful, patient, wise, healthy, congenial, secure, comfortable, un-worried, calm, at ease …
Simply stated each of us is made for the ways of monastic consciousness. Yet, look around you – look in the mirror – are you not more or less fully engaged in the things of secular cultures? Do you not act and think like a secularist – a sort-of human machine, fully and uncritically absorbed with the never-ceasing dance of secularism and all its inane lunacy? Are you not sucked into listening to whomever appears on the Boob-Tube?
Dear God!!! Do you not want to escape this in-crazed nonsense of the mindless, lost secular herd?
Be the monk you are made to be. Silence. Solitude. Simplicity. Spirituality.
Shalom.
Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. (Emphasis added.)
Matt 7:21
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These words from Jesus are quite clear. One must do the will of the Father if one wishes to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Yes, this is the challenge. Do you act as God would have you act? Or do you do what is convenient?
In an effort to join the mass do you do as they do no matter what that might be? Do you bow to clearly sinful and disordered conduct? Do you like to be liked more than you like to be right and abide by the truth of the matter? Do you ignore the godlessness of the present age and pretend that it is not destroying God’s creation? Is revolting? Creating sickness? Division? Decline?
Think about refreshing your understanding of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis (Chapter 19). Zero in on the plight of Lot in that story. See that Lot lost all he had gained living in Sodom.
This story “adds meat to the bones” of Jesus words in the Gospel of Matthew. The point being: what we gain outside God’s intention is not worth having and it will eventually be lost to us. Acting outside God’s intention brings misery and grave discontent.
How many of you seek to gain without regard to God’s desire for you? How many ask: am I doing what God intends? How many realize that doing God’s will leads us to the corollary obligation to speak up when presented with evil or sinful conduct or its promotion?
Shalom.
