One of the many books I'm working my way through right now is Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton. He's worming his way into my affections, and I suspect by the time I'm done with this book, he'll be one of my favorite authors. I expected this to happen as soon as I picked up a book by him, but I didn't fall in love with his writing right away. The book that I'm currently reading was one which Lewis said influenced him to become a Christian, and because of that, I thought I would love it instantly. There wasn't instant chemistry however, to stretch the analogy further, but as I slowly spend more time with GKC, I'm becoming a big fan.
He's definitely a great thinker, but at times I feel he allows pithy comments to overwhelm the defensibility of his point. For example, one paragraph will show what I mean:
It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.
He's speaking about the value of legend and myth, as opposed to what is supposedly "true," the teachings of scientists. He makes a good point, but the line that "the book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad," makes me think of partisan lines used in political speeches to arouse applause from the proverbial choir: he's hearing cheers from those who already hold his view, applauding the pithiness of the line. It's not defensible to say that books are written by madmen, and he didn't need to write that to defend his point. I think he was very satisfied with the line, so kept it in. I have seen several similar moments where I have to scratch my head and say, "it ain't necessarily so."
Unfortunately, in my mind, one of the central foundations of the book is based on something that "ain't necessarily so." He makes the case in the first chapter of the book that one should really put their faith in the artist, or the storyteller, more than he should place his trust in someone who is a slave to logical thinking. He argues that creativity rarely leads to madness, but that rigid, logical thinking is the path to insanity:
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists, very seldom. I am not, as will be seen, in any sense attacking logic: I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination.
What bugs me about this is that Chesterton's case for Christianity is very strong, but his premise is based largely on a thesis that stems from the statement above, a thesis that isn't really defensible. History is fraught with artists who've gone mad. He uses the argument above to lead into a defense of fairy tales as telling more truths than science does, and urges a view of the world that is formed more by creativity and imagination than it is by rational thinking. I happen to agree with this view of Chesterton's, and as I read more of the book, I'm beginning to understand why his writing resonated with Lewis so profoundly. The current chapter is fantastic, entitled "The Ethics of Elfland." That fits Lewis well, but unfortunately, I feel that the book wouldn't help a modern reader find Christianity, if they were reading with a highly critical and rationalistic mind, which of course is something GKC would have railed against.
Regardless, here's one of the best passages in the book:
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.
And another passage that got several stars by it in my reading:
The sense of the miracle of humanity itself always should be more vivid to us than any marvels of power, intellect, art or civilization. The mere man on two legs, as such, should be felt as something more heartbreaking than any music and more startling as any caricature.
I'll probably add more thoughts on GKC as I keep reading. If you haven't read him, give it a whirl. He's making me think about things I've never thought about, in ways I've never imagined. That's a good writer, if you ask me.
Showing posts with label WORDS OF WISDOM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WORDS OF WISDOM. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton, from the Seven Storey Mountain:
I write down what I have found out at last, so that anyone who is now in the position that I was in then may read it and know what to do to save himself from great peril and unhappiness. And to such a one I would say:
Whoever you are, the land to which God has brought you is not like the land of Egypt from which you have came out. You can no longer live here as you lived there. Your old life and your former ways are crucified now, and you must not seek to live anymore for your own gratification, but give up your own judgment into the hands of a wise director, and sacrifice your pleasures and comforts for the love of God and give the money you no longer spend on those things, to the poor.
Above all, eat your daily Bread without which you cannot live, and come to know Christ Whose Life feeds you in the Host, and He will give you a taste of joys and delights that transcend anything you have ever experienced before, and which will make the transition easy.
I believe this is what God desires for us and our personal stories of redemption: to point the way to others whose stories are most like our own, to be able to be a witness to them so that they may hear our stories and "know what to do to save [themselves] from great peril and unhappiness." This is the most important part: to realize that the land that we have come into is no longer Egypt.
It's time to get cracking on my book, since I desire to help people to know what they need to do save themselves from the unhappiness and great peril where I once found myself. That's the message of the Gospel in my life.
I write down what I have found out at last, so that anyone who is now in the position that I was in then may read it and know what to do to save himself from great peril and unhappiness. And to such a one I would say:
Whoever you are, the land to which God has brought you is not like the land of Egypt from which you have came out. You can no longer live here as you lived there. Your old life and your former ways are crucified now, and you must not seek to live anymore for your own gratification, but give up your own judgment into the hands of a wise director, and sacrifice your pleasures and comforts for the love of God and give the money you no longer spend on those things, to the poor.
Above all, eat your daily Bread without which you cannot live, and come to know Christ Whose Life feeds you in the Host, and He will give you a taste of joys and delights that transcend anything you have ever experienced before, and which will make the transition easy.
I believe this is what God desires for us and our personal stories of redemption: to point the way to others whose stories are most like our own, to be able to be a witness to them so that they may hear our stories and "know what to do to save [themselves] from great peril and unhappiness." This is the most important part: to realize that the land that we have come into is no longer Egypt.
It's time to get cracking on my book, since I desire to help people to know what they need to do save themselves from the unhappiness and great peril where I once found myself. That's the message of the Gospel in my life.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Wisdom from Brother Lawrence
I know someone's who going through a difficult time in his life, and is about to make what he believes is a wise decision, but which I believe wiser minds would say isn't. I'm concerned about him, but what I've come to realize that all of our concern and all of our anxiety over other people should primarily drive us to pray for them. Interventions of course can be a good idea, but they don't always work, and I think they can even deny the ultimate source of all healing and all help that comes to us: God's grace.
Brother Lawrence seemed to have an almost nonchalant attitude towards the salvation of other souls and the redemption of sinners. He told one of his followers that he would pray for them, and then forget about them, trusting in God's power and benevolent mercy to look after the souls of those he prayed for. I know in my own life I was allowed by God to do things that were unwise, and as a result, God brought me back to himself, by transforming the error of my ways.
I will pray for this acquaintance of mine, and forget about it...except to pray again when I think about him. I won't wring my hands in anxiety, and trust him to God's loving and benevolent mercy.
Brother Lawrence seemed to have an almost nonchalant attitude towards the salvation of other souls and the redemption of sinners. He told one of his followers that he would pray for them, and then forget about them, trusting in God's power and benevolent mercy to look after the souls of those he prayed for. I know in my own life I was allowed by God to do things that were unwise, and as a result, God brought me back to himself, by transforming the error of my ways.
I will pray for this acquaintance of mine, and forget about it...except to pray again when I think about him. I won't wring my hands in anxiety, and trust him to God's loving and benevolent mercy.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Two Quotes from C.S. Lewis
The first, for my insomniac friends, from a letter dated 27/xi/53:
"About sleep: do you find that the great secret (if one can do it) is not to care whether you sleep? Sleep is a jade who scorns her suitors but woos her scorners."
The second, wisdom on loving, from a letter dated Dec 22d 1953:
"Remember it is not being loved but loving wh. is the high & holy thing."
"About sleep: do you find that the great secret (if one can do it) is not to care whether you sleep? Sleep is a jade who scorns her suitors but woos her scorners."
The second, wisdom on loving, from a letter dated Dec 22d 1953:
"Remember it is not being loved but loving wh. is the high & holy thing."
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Duo Ubera
I've been reading a very good book sent to me by Mark M., of Hillsdale County fame, called Interior Freedom, by the French author Jacques Philippe. It's a short book filled with profound wisdom about attaining what seems so illusive to most of us.
I sit in my living room, late into the evening, reflecting on what I have read in the book, accompanied by the music of Giovanni Palestrina, with no light other than five candles. I'm in a contemplative mood and I keep thinking about a passage in the book that speaks to the freedom that comes from accepting those things which we would never have chosen. Philippe writes, "when we are adolescents our lives seem to stretch before us with a broad range of possibilities to choose from; but as time goes by, that range will get progressively narrower. We have to make choices, and the options we select reduce the number of possibilities left open." He writes about the modern notion of freedom, reflected in a desire to see life as a marketplace of infinite choices spread before us and points out the repercussions this brings to our lives. He points out that for so many of us today, we "put off making a final choice, because choice is perceived as a loss of freedom." The result? People who desire continual choices "don't dare decide and never actually live!" And then he writes these words that ring so true: "Yet life chooses for them anyway, since time passes inexorably."
Very few of us can look back on our lives and say that our lives are what we would have chosen them to be. Life chose for us, and we are now living as a result of time and its inexorable passing. In my life, there are so many issues which are things that I would never have chosen but they are my lot. I am no different than any other man in this regard, and if anyone is even an occasional reader of this blog, they will know that the one area in my life that I would not have chosen is to be an unmarried man at age 38.
I have attempted to come to terms with my single state. I work towards saying to God, "Thy will be done," but underlying that very prayer is the keen desire that God's will would be that I be married, and soon, and to one woman in particular. Then there are moments of fear and trepidation that perhaps God's will is for me to be single the rest of my life, and if that is the case, the only thing I can pray for is my daily bread. There is a constant stream of uncertainty that flows through my life and I realized tonight that what I desire more than anything is to simply know: to know if I will ever be married, with children, or if I will be single the rest of my life. This continual state of not knowing is a hard place to be.
As I sit here late in the evening tonight, reflecting on the words I have been reading, reflecting on a week of dates with two different women, reflecting on a week that was marked by seeing Meg again, hoping with the vain hope that only a man consumed with love can know, hoping that she would return to me after hearing me profess my undying and unfailing love to her again with all the eloquence I could muster, yet knowing beforehand what her answer would be, I realize that time has passed inexorably before me. And I have not chosen the path that I find myself on, yet it is my life.
Where is the freedom in this perpetual state of not knowing? I have often felt that my life would change if I could only know this: will I be married or single? To know that I will be married would allow me to wait with calm and steady patience; knowing that I will be single would allow me to steel my resolve and embrace the single life completely, without the constant bombardment of torturous hope that assails me every day. Sometimes I feel like C.S. Lewis in the Shadowlands, in the scene where he is reading in the library during the end of winter, and he says that he detests the "in between time," where it is neither winter or spring. I feel like I'm in a perpetual "in between time" and I want to know if it's going to be winter or spring. If I could but know what my future holds! But that is not our lot, and it has never been any man's lot. As Richard Russo has written, "Lives are like rivers. Eventually they go where they must, not where we want them to." Time passes inexorably.
So what are we to do? Tonight I am weary of the perpetual hope of knowing. What I have come to realize is that it doesn't matter where we are in our lives, we will always not know. We will not know what tomorrow brings, we will not know if we will suddenly become ill, or if our parents will die in a car crash on their way home from Italy. We will not know if our job will be there tomorrow, or if the ones we love will return our love. What we do know, and the only thing we can know, is that we are loved and cherished by God, and all that happens to us is for the betterment of our soul, as I learned from a blind Carthusian in the film Into Great Silence. This "in between time," then, is my lot now, because it is for the betterment of my soul.
Jacques Philippe writes these words, which I feel warrant much reflection:
It is natural and easy to go along with pleasant situations that arise without our choosing them. It becomes a problem, obviously, when things are unpleasant, go against us, or make us suffer. But it is precisely then that, in order to become truly free, we are often called to choose to accept what we did not want, and even what we would not have wanted at any price. There is a paradoxical law of human life here: one cannot become truly free unless one accepts not always being free!
May God help me to embrace the freedom that comes from accepting those things that I would not have wanted at any price.
(Go listen to Duo Ubera by Giovanni Palestrina. Do it. Now. Your life will be better for doing so.)
I sit in my living room, late into the evening, reflecting on what I have read in the book, accompanied by the music of Giovanni Palestrina, with no light other than five candles. I'm in a contemplative mood and I keep thinking about a passage in the book that speaks to the freedom that comes from accepting those things which we would never have chosen. Philippe writes, "when we are adolescents our lives seem to stretch before us with a broad range of possibilities to choose from; but as time goes by, that range will get progressively narrower. We have to make choices, and the options we select reduce the number of possibilities left open." He writes about the modern notion of freedom, reflected in a desire to see life as a marketplace of infinite choices spread before us and points out the repercussions this brings to our lives. He points out that for so many of us today, we "put off making a final choice, because choice is perceived as a loss of freedom." The result? People who desire continual choices "don't dare decide and never actually live!" And then he writes these words that ring so true: "Yet life chooses for them anyway, since time passes inexorably."
Very few of us can look back on our lives and say that our lives are what we would have chosen them to be. Life chose for us, and we are now living as a result of time and its inexorable passing. In my life, there are so many issues which are things that I would never have chosen but they are my lot. I am no different than any other man in this regard, and if anyone is even an occasional reader of this blog, they will know that the one area in my life that I would not have chosen is to be an unmarried man at age 38.
I have attempted to come to terms with my single state. I work towards saying to God, "Thy will be done," but underlying that very prayer is the keen desire that God's will would be that I be married, and soon, and to one woman in particular. Then there are moments of fear and trepidation that perhaps God's will is for me to be single the rest of my life, and if that is the case, the only thing I can pray for is my daily bread. There is a constant stream of uncertainty that flows through my life and I realized tonight that what I desire more than anything is to simply know: to know if I will ever be married, with children, or if I will be single the rest of my life. This continual state of not knowing is a hard place to be.
As I sit here late in the evening tonight, reflecting on the words I have been reading, reflecting on a week of dates with two different women, reflecting on a week that was marked by seeing Meg again, hoping with the vain hope that only a man consumed with love can know, hoping that she would return to me after hearing me profess my undying and unfailing love to her again with all the eloquence I could muster, yet knowing beforehand what her answer would be, I realize that time has passed inexorably before me. And I have not chosen the path that I find myself on, yet it is my life.
Where is the freedom in this perpetual state of not knowing? I have often felt that my life would change if I could only know this: will I be married or single? To know that I will be married would allow me to wait with calm and steady patience; knowing that I will be single would allow me to steel my resolve and embrace the single life completely, without the constant bombardment of torturous hope that assails me every day. Sometimes I feel like C.S. Lewis in the Shadowlands, in the scene where he is reading in the library during the end of winter, and he says that he detests the "in between time," where it is neither winter or spring. I feel like I'm in a perpetual "in between time" and I want to know if it's going to be winter or spring. If I could but know what my future holds! But that is not our lot, and it has never been any man's lot. As Richard Russo has written, "Lives are like rivers. Eventually they go where they must, not where we want them to." Time passes inexorably.
So what are we to do? Tonight I am weary of the perpetual hope of knowing. What I have come to realize is that it doesn't matter where we are in our lives, we will always not know. We will not know what tomorrow brings, we will not know if we will suddenly become ill, or if our parents will die in a car crash on their way home from Italy. We will not know if our job will be there tomorrow, or if the ones we love will return our love. What we do know, and the only thing we can know, is that we are loved and cherished by God, and all that happens to us is for the betterment of our soul, as I learned from a blind Carthusian in the film Into Great Silence. This "in between time," then, is my lot now, because it is for the betterment of my soul.
Jacques Philippe writes these words, which I feel warrant much reflection:
It is natural and easy to go along with pleasant situations that arise without our choosing them. It becomes a problem, obviously, when things are unpleasant, go against us, or make us suffer. But it is precisely then that, in order to become truly free, we are often called to choose to accept what we did not want, and even what we would not have wanted at any price. There is a paradoxical law of human life here: one cannot become truly free unless one accepts not always being free!
May God help me to embrace the freedom that comes from accepting those things that I would not have wanted at any price.
(Go listen to Duo Ubera by Giovanni Palestrina. Do it. Now. Your life will be better for doing so.)
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Brother Lawrence on Suffering II
The opening line of this letter reminds of the words said by the blind Carthusian monk in the film Into Great Silence:
And because He is an infinitely good being, He eternally seeks our well-being. Therefore, there is no cause for worry in any of the things which happen to us. I often thank God that he let me be blinded. I am sure he let this happen for the good of my soul...God is infinitely good, and that all of his actions are in our best interest. Because of this a Christian should always be happy, never unhappy. Because everything that happens is God's will, and it only happens for the well-being of our soul.
Here is the opening paragraph of Brother Lawrence's letter of February 6, 1691
God indeed knows what we need, and everything he does is for our good. If we knew how much he loves us, we would readily accept the bitter with the sweet, and even the most painful and difficult things would be pleasant and agreeable. The most painful sufferings do not ordinarily seem unbearable unless we look at them from the wrong perspective. Furthermore, when we are convinced that it is the hand of God at work in us--that he is a Father full of love who allows us to endure humiliation, pain, and suffering--all the bitterness is taken away, and only the sweetness remains.
I like how he writes about looking at painful sufferings from the wrong perspective. That's what we do all the time.
And because He is an infinitely good being, He eternally seeks our well-being. Therefore, there is no cause for worry in any of the things which happen to us. I often thank God that he let me be blinded. I am sure he let this happen for the good of my soul...God is infinitely good, and that all of his actions are in our best interest. Because of this a Christian should always be happy, never unhappy. Because everything that happens is God's will, and it only happens for the well-being of our soul.
Here is the opening paragraph of Brother Lawrence's letter of February 6, 1691
God indeed knows what we need, and everything he does is for our good. If we knew how much he loves us, we would readily accept the bitter with the sweet, and even the most painful and difficult things would be pleasant and agreeable. The most painful sufferings do not ordinarily seem unbearable unless we look at them from the wrong perspective. Furthermore, when we are convinced that it is the hand of God at work in us--that he is a Father full of love who allows us to endure humiliation, pain, and suffering--all the bitterness is taken away, and only the sweetness remains.
I like how he writes about looking at painful sufferings from the wrong perspective. That's what we do all the time.
Brother Lawrence on Suffering
In a letter dated November 17, 1690, Brother Lawrence wrote the following words that would seem strange and even unfeeling to the world. I happen to agree wholheartedly with Brother Lawrence:
I will not ask God to deliver you from your trials, but I will ask him earnestly to give you the patience and strength needed to suffer as long as he desires. Find consolation in him who keeps you fixed to the cross; he will release you when he judges it appropriate. Happy are they who suffer with him. Get used to suffering, and ask him for the strength to suffer as he wants, and for as long as he judges necessary. The worldly do not understand these truths, and I am not surprised; the reason is that they suffer as citizens of this world and not as Christians. They consider illnesses as natural afflictions and not as graces from God, and therefor they find in them only what is difficult and harsh for [our] nature. But those who regard them as coming from the hand of God, as signs of his mercy and the means he uses for their salvation, ordinarily find great sweetness and perceptible consolations in them.
The only place where I disagree with Brother Lawrence is "I will not ask God to deliver you from your trials." Certainly if our Lord asked if the cup could be passed, we can certainly pray this, just so long as our constant refrain is "thy will be done."
I will not ask God to deliver you from your trials, but I will ask him earnestly to give you the patience and strength needed to suffer as long as he desires. Find consolation in him who keeps you fixed to the cross; he will release you when he judges it appropriate. Happy are they who suffer with him. Get used to suffering, and ask him for the strength to suffer as he wants, and for as long as he judges necessary. The worldly do not understand these truths, and I am not surprised; the reason is that they suffer as citizens of this world and not as Christians. They consider illnesses as natural afflictions and not as graces from God, and therefor they find in them only what is difficult and harsh for [our] nature. But those who regard them as coming from the hand of God, as signs of his mercy and the means he uses for their salvation, ordinarily find great sweetness and perceptible consolations in them.
The only place where I disagree with Brother Lawrence is "I will not ask God to deliver you from your trials." Certainly if our Lord asked if the cup could be passed, we can certainly pray this, just so long as our constant refrain is "thy will be done."
Saturday, October 18, 2008
The Most Profound Comments On the Election
This absolutely blew me away, and cut through all of the smoke surrounding the election. Thanks to Scott for this link:
I want to print this out and give it to everyone who's thinking about voting for Obama, especially fellow believers.
At Long Last: Obama, Abortion, and the Courts
I want to print this out and give it to everyone who's thinking about voting for Obama, especially fellow believers.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Modern Logic
We have come in our culture now to the point to where your logic is judged by the conclusion you reach, instead of judging the conclusion you reach by the logic. And your logic, if it doesn’t come out at the “right place” is often condemned.
Dallas Willard, Oxbridge 1998, “Truth in the Fire”
I listened to this sometime this past summer. It's a tape that's been floating around my house from my brother Steve's trip to Oxbridge 1998, ten years ago which celebrated the life and writings of C.S. Lewis. I think this man is brilliant and that this quote has myriad applications today.
Dallas Willard, Oxbridge 1998, “Truth in the Fire”
I listened to this sometime this past summer. It's a tape that's been floating around my house from my brother Steve's trip to Oxbridge 1998, ten years ago which celebrated the life and writings of C.S. Lewis. I think this man is brilliant and that this quote has myriad applications today.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Sir Thomas More
Do you ever marvel about the fact that men are the same, regardless of the age in which they live? I stumbled on a book by Sir Thomas More (of A Man For All Seasons fame) and I am enjoying the fact that a man who was born nearly 500 years before I was can speak to me today about issues that I and my contemporaries continue to face.
Here is a passage I found particularly insightful this afternoon from the book A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation:
For if we determine with ourselves that we will take no comfort in
anything but the taking of our tribulation from us, then either we
prescribe to God that he shall do us no better turn, even though he
would, than we will ourselves appoint him; or else we declare that
we ourselves can tell better than he what is better for us. And
therefore, I say, let us in tribulation desire his help and
comfort, and let us remit the manner of that comfort unto his own
high pleasure. When we do this, let us nothing doubt but that, as
his high wisdom better seeth what is best for us than we can see it
ourselves, so shall his sovereign high goodness give us that thing
that shall indeed be best.
Amen, Sir Thomas, Amen!
Here is a passage I found particularly insightful this afternoon from the book A Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation:
For if we determine with ourselves that we will take no comfort in
anything but the taking of our tribulation from us, then either we
prescribe to God that he shall do us no better turn, even though he
would, than we will ourselves appoint him; or else we declare that
we ourselves can tell better than he what is better for us. And
therefore, I say, let us in tribulation desire his help and
comfort, and let us remit the manner of that comfort unto his own
high pleasure. When we do this, let us nothing doubt but that, as
his high wisdom better seeth what is best for us than we can see it
ourselves, so shall his sovereign high goodness give us that thing
that shall indeed be best.
Amen, Sir Thomas, Amen!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Thoughts on Marriage
I'm becoming convinced that the rough patches in life are given to us to cause us to learn the lesson that all we have is God. I've been thinking a lot about the wilderness as I work on this book I'm writing. Lord knows we all have our times in the wilderness, and what has struck me as the most profound insight is Merton's statement that God intends the wilderness to always be an idyllic time with Him alone.
That has given me food for thought, and I'm hoping that I can view times of wilderness like that. But I think we need to ask God how the wilderness can draw us nearer to Him, in an idyllic way. It's not simply enough to say, "OK...I'm in the wilderness...I'm supposed to be alone with God, like Israel before the Promised Land, and I'm supposed to like it."
I went to the Allegan Antique Market yesterday and had a good day. It turned out that yesterday was mainly concerned with picking up things for my kitchen. The major purchase was an old Hamilton Beach malt maker, made with some serious cast iron. It works, and I broke it in by making malts yesterday at my fellow west-siders' house. I bought a few other things as well, including several kitchen implements that you just can't find anymore. Maybe I'll post a picture of the haul.
I went alone, which I've done many times, but there's always a part of me that wishes that I had someone to go with who enjoys it as much as I. Yesterday, I consciously tried to pray to help me view that it might be an "idyllic time with God in the wilderness." Sometimes I know that I fear intimacy with God. I think of Lewis who describes Aslan as dangerous. God isn't safe, at least in our usual understanding of the word, of being "comfortable." But I do believe that I'm single right now for a reason, and that I'm going through the wilderness and in my profound desire for a wife, God is calling me to turn to Him for all of my desires for intimacy.
I've been reading a lot of Merton lately, and his writing is remarkably insightful. As I think about a future relationship with a wife, I'm beginning to wonder how intimate we should desire to be with our spouse. That seems a strange thing to say, but in Merton's writing, he speaks of the need to respect the need for solitude of the individual in every relationship, including in marriage. It would seem that he argues that a truly intimate love for a spouse allows for their need for their truest intimacy to be with Christ, their savior. It seems an honest take on marriage: we can only become so close to anyone, even though both parties have made vows to each other. Ultimately, the role of marriage is gifted to us all to help bring us closer to God and if pursuing an unhealthy intimacy with each other (ala A Severe Mercy) we're actually distorting the true purpose of marriage.
This is a new and revolutionary way for me to think about marriage, and for that I'm grateful. I think I've viewed marriage as my life preserver, but it can't be that. It must be entered into with love, with the desire and aim to help point the other to Christ. As I think about the wilderness, and the Promised Land, I realize I'm nearing 40 years, which will come in just two years' time. My hope is that I reach the Promised Land by then and have a wife.
Here is an excerpt from No Man Is An Island:
We tend to identify ourselves with those we love. We try to enter into their own souls and become what they are, thinking as they think, feeling as they feel, and experiencing what they experience.
But there is no true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude. I cannot be united in love with a person whose very personality my love tends to obscure, to absorb, and to destroy. Nor can I awaken true love in a person who is invited, by my love, to be drowned in the act of drowning me with love.
And later:
Charity is a love that fortifies the ones we love in the secrecy of their own being, their own integrity, their own contemplation of God, their own free charity for all who exist in Him.
Such love leads to God because it comes from Him. It leads to a union between souls that is as intimate as their own union with Him. The closer we are to God, the closer we are to those who are close to Him. We can come to understand others only by loving Him Who understand them from within the depths of their own being. Otherwise we know them only by the surmises that are formed within the mirror of our own soul.
And a final excerpt:
Charity makes me seek far more than the satisfaction of my own desires, even though they be aimed at another's good. It must also make me an instrument of God's Providence in their lives. I must become convinced and penetrated by the realization that without my love for them they may perhaps not achieve the things God has willed for them. My will must be the instrument of God's will in helping them create their destiny. My love must be to them the "sacrament" of the mysterious and infinitely selfless love God has for them. My love must be for them the minister not of my own spirit but of the Holy Spirit. The words I speak to them must be no other than the words of Christ Who deigns to reveal Himself to them in me.
That has given me food for thought, and I'm hoping that I can view times of wilderness like that. But I think we need to ask God how the wilderness can draw us nearer to Him, in an idyllic way. It's not simply enough to say, "OK...I'm in the wilderness...I'm supposed to be alone with God, like Israel before the Promised Land, and I'm supposed to like it."
I went to the Allegan Antique Market yesterday and had a good day. It turned out that yesterday was mainly concerned with picking up things for my kitchen. The major purchase was an old Hamilton Beach malt maker, made with some serious cast iron. It works, and I broke it in by making malts yesterday at my fellow west-siders' house. I bought a few other things as well, including several kitchen implements that you just can't find anymore. Maybe I'll post a picture of the haul.
I went alone, which I've done many times, but there's always a part of me that wishes that I had someone to go with who enjoys it as much as I. Yesterday, I consciously tried to pray to help me view that it might be an "idyllic time with God in the wilderness." Sometimes I know that I fear intimacy with God. I think of Lewis who describes Aslan as dangerous. God isn't safe, at least in our usual understanding of the word, of being "comfortable." But I do believe that I'm single right now for a reason, and that I'm going through the wilderness and in my profound desire for a wife, God is calling me to turn to Him for all of my desires for intimacy.
I've been reading a lot of Merton lately, and his writing is remarkably insightful. As I think about a future relationship with a wife, I'm beginning to wonder how intimate we should desire to be with our spouse. That seems a strange thing to say, but in Merton's writing, he speaks of the need to respect the need for solitude of the individual in every relationship, including in marriage. It would seem that he argues that a truly intimate love for a spouse allows for their need for their truest intimacy to be with Christ, their savior. It seems an honest take on marriage: we can only become so close to anyone, even though both parties have made vows to each other. Ultimately, the role of marriage is gifted to us all to help bring us closer to God and if pursuing an unhealthy intimacy with each other (ala A Severe Mercy) we're actually distorting the true purpose of marriage.
This is a new and revolutionary way for me to think about marriage, and for that I'm grateful. I think I've viewed marriage as my life preserver, but it can't be that. It must be entered into with love, with the desire and aim to help point the other to Christ. As I think about the wilderness, and the Promised Land, I realize I'm nearing 40 years, which will come in just two years' time. My hope is that I reach the Promised Land by then and have a wife.
Here is an excerpt from No Man Is An Island:
We tend to identify ourselves with those we love. We try to enter into their own souls and become what they are, thinking as they think, feeling as they feel, and experiencing what they experience.
But there is no true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another's solitude. I cannot be united in love with a person whose very personality my love tends to obscure, to absorb, and to destroy. Nor can I awaken true love in a person who is invited, by my love, to be drowned in the act of drowning me with love.
And later:
Charity is a love that fortifies the ones we love in the secrecy of their own being, their own integrity, their own contemplation of God, their own free charity for all who exist in Him.
Such love leads to God because it comes from Him. It leads to a union between souls that is as intimate as their own union with Him. The closer we are to God, the closer we are to those who are close to Him. We can come to understand others only by loving Him Who understand them from within the depths of their own being. Otherwise we know them only by the surmises that are formed within the mirror of our own soul.
And a final excerpt:
Charity makes me seek far more than the satisfaction of my own desires, even though they be aimed at another's good. It must also make me an instrument of God's Providence in their lives. I must become convinced and penetrated by the realization that without my love for them they may perhaps not achieve the things God has willed for them. My will must be the instrument of God's will in helping them create their destiny. My love must be to them the "sacrament" of the mysterious and infinitely selfless love God has for them. My love must be for them the minister not of my own spirit but of the Holy Spirit. The words I speak to them must be no other than the words of Christ Who deigns to reveal Himself to them in me.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Powerful Stuff from Merton on Suffering
Suffering, therefore, must make sense to us not as a vague universal necessity, but as something demanded by our own personal destiny. When I see my trials not as the collision of my life with a blind machine called fate, but as the sacramental gift of Christ's love, given to me by God the Father along with my identity and my very name, then I can consecrate them and myself with them to God. For then I realize that my suffering is not my own. It is the Passion of Christ, stretching out its tendrils into my life in order to bear rich clusters of grapes, making my soul dizzy with the wine of Christ's love, and pouring that wine as strong as fire upon the whole world.
Amen, brother Thomas!
I think of the blind Carthusian monk I wrote about awhile ago, who thanked God for being born blind. It was part of his destiny to suffer with blindness, and he realized that it was God's tender mercy that caused him to be blind, for he believed it was done for the betterment of his soul. And the betterment of his soul can only be described in one way: transforming him to be like Christ, who gave his life on behalf of others. That is the business of heaven.
Here are further words on suffering from Merton's book, No Man Is An Island:
The Lord did not create suffering. Pain and death came into the world with the fall of man. But after man had chosen suffering in preference to the joys of union with God, the Lord turned suffering itself into a way by which man could come to the perfect knowledge of God.
I find that to be absolutely beautiful.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Viktor Frankl On Suffering
If you haven't read it before, I urge you to read Viktor Frankl's book Man's Search For Meaning. Written by a Nazi concentration survivor, it's a profound examination of how one can find meaning in the midst of suffering, even in the midst of such dehumanizing conditions as the author experienced. If anyone has suffered, it's a survivor of Auschwitz, and if he or she speaks about how to transform suffering into something that reflects our inner dignity and freedom, then I'll pay close attention. I've often thought that many of us have our own prisons where we suffer, whether it be a physical ailment, or something more psychological, like depression, or perhaps something moral, such as struggling daily with temptation. They are all prisons that Christ desires to free us from, but in the midst of the suffering, while we are yet behind their gates, he calls us to grow in our suffering, and indeed to embrace the suffering as a gift that transforms us. As Frankl says, "any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him-mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevski said once, 'There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.' These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom-which cannot be taken away-that makes life meaningful and purposeful."
Here are a few quotes that I think are quite powerful.
If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.
The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity-even under the most difficult circumstances-to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.
The following story never fails to move me, and I always wonder if I am able to echo in my own life the incredible statement this woman said in the midst of a concentration camp.
This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard," she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously." Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, "This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness." Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. "I often talk to this tree," she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. "Yes." What did it say to her? She answered, "It said to me, 'I am here-I am here-I am life, eternal life.' "
We have a Tree as well, that says to us in the midst of all of our trials, pains and suffering: I am here-I am here-I am life, eternal life.
Here are a few quotes that I think are quite powerful.
If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.
The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity-even under the most difficult circumstances-to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.
The following story never fails to move me, and I always wonder if I am able to echo in my own life the incredible statement this woman said in the midst of a concentration camp.
This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. "I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard," she told me. "In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously." Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, "This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness." Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. "I often talk to this tree," she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. "Yes." What did it say to her? She answered, "It said to me, 'I am here-I am here-I am life, eternal life.' "
We have a Tree as well, that says to us in the midst of all of our trials, pains and suffering: I am here-I am here-I am life, eternal life.
Friday, May 09, 2008
Thomas Merton
I think Thomas Merton is absolutely brilliant.
The opening sentence of No Man Is An Island is like a pin prick of light that brightens exponentially with each word that follows. It's one of the most profound sentences I've ever read, and it is a seed of an idea that grows throughout the first chapter to become one of the most succinct description of Christianity that I think I've ever read. The chapter is called "Love Can Be Kept Only By Being Given Away." It's stunning, and I think everyone should read it.
Here's the opening line:
A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.
That is everything that our life is about! We all desperately desire to be happy, to find peace and joy in this difficult life of ours, and we find all kinds of ways to fill the void, to fill the loneliness and emptiness we feel. The crutches that we turn to time and time again never fail to disappoint. It is by loving others out of selfless love where we find true joy.
Here's the next paragraph:
There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves.
And another powerful passage:
The first step to unselfish love is the recognition that our love may be deluded. We must first of all purify our love by renouncing the pleasure of loving as an end in itself. As long as pleasure is our end, we will be dishonest with ourselves and with those we love. We will not seek their good, but our own pleasure.
Imagine if marriages were approached this way? I don't think we'd have a 50% divorce rate! As Lewis says, we need to be about the business of heaven: expending our lives on behalf of those around us. That's loving with an unselfish love, which, as Merton says, "not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. It has only one good: that of the beloved, which is, at the same time, my own. Love shares the good with another not by dividing it with him, but by identifying itself with him so that his good becomes my own."
That cuts through me like a knife.
The opening sentence of No Man Is An Island is like a pin prick of light that brightens exponentially with each word that follows. It's one of the most profound sentences I've ever read, and it is a seed of an idea that grows throughout the first chapter to become one of the most succinct description of Christianity that I think I've ever read. The chapter is called "Love Can Be Kept Only By Being Given Away." It's stunning, and I think everyone should read it.
Here's the opening line:
A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.
That is everything that our life is about! We all desperately desire to be happy, to find peace and joy in this difficult life of ours, and we find all kinds of ways to fill the void, to fill the loneliness and emptiness we feel. The crutches that we turn to time and time again never fail to disappoint. It is by loving others out of selfless love where we find true joy.
Here's the next paragraph:
There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves.
And another powerful passage:
The first step to unselfish love is the recognition that our love may be deluded. We must first of all purify our love by renouncing the pleasure of loving as an end in itself. As long as pleasure is our end, we will be dishonest with ourselves and with those we love. We will not seek their good, but our own pleasure.
Imagine if marriages were approached this way? I don't think we'd have a 50% divorce rate! As Lewis says, we need to be about the business of heaven: expending our lives on behalf of those around us. That's loving with an unselfish love, which, as Merton says, "not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. It has only one good: that of the beloved, which is, at the same time, my own. Love shares the good with another not by dividing it with him, but by identifying itself with him so that his good becomes my own."
That cuts through me like a knife.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
E.E. Again
I've been reading a slew of books lately, bopping from one to another. This afternoon, I spent some time reading some Elisabeth Elliot and two sentences rang out, clear as day. A good reminder for someone who's always pining for a wife, and a good reminder for all of us who feel the need or absence of something in our lives.
God has promised to supply our needs. What we don't have now we don't need now.
That's pretty clear cut, ain't it? That's worth chewing over for awhile, at least for me.
God has promised to supply our needs. What we don't have now we don't need now.
That's pretty clear cut, ain't it? That's worth chewing over for awhile, at least for me.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Merton on Writing
From Thomas Merton's book, New Seeds of Contemplation:
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy.
If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while.
If you write only for yourself you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted you will wish that you were dead.
And later:
If a writer writes so cautiously that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people you have got to make up your mind to write things that some men will condemn.
This last quote was good for me to read. I opened the book randomly, and that quote jumped out at me. I'm pretty sure the book I plan to write is something some men will condemn, so I guess that's a good thing.
If you write for God you will reach many men and bring them joy.
If you write for men--you may make some money and you may give someone a little joy and you may make a noise in the world, for a little while.
If you write only for yourself you can read what you yourself have written and after ten minutes you will be so disgusted you will wish that you were dead.
And later:
If a writer writes so cautiously that he never writes anything that cannot be criticized, he will never write anything that can be read. If you want to help other people you have got to make up your mind to write things that some men will condemn.
This last quote was good for me to read. I opened the book randomly, and that quote jumped out at me. I'm pretty sure the book I plan to write is something some men will condemn, so I guess that's a good thing.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Elisabeth Elliot, again
Elisabeth Elliot has catapulted her way this year into the pantheon of my favorite authors. She's definitely in the top ten for me, and has to be listed as one of the most influential writers who have shaped my thinking. Doesn't it seem we often find the right book just at the right time?
Here's a passage I read tonight in one of her books, with an admittedly lachrymose title: The Path of Loneliness.
Acceptance of discipleship is the utter abandonment of the disciple, the surrender of all rights, to the Master. This abandonment, in all cases, will mean pain. Christ listed some of the troubles His followers could expect, so that they would not be taken by surprise and thus discard their faith in Him. He didn't offer immunity. He asked for trust.
As we have noted, Jesus published no false advertising. He was offering the kingdom of heaven--bliss, eternal life, fullness of joy. But He spoke of the small gate and the narrow road. He promised suffering, not escape from suffering. You cannot take up a cross and at the same time not take up a cross, or learn how to die and how not to die.
And another passage:
There are many things that God does not fix precisely because He loves us. (Emphasis is Elliot). Instead of extracting us from the problem, He calls us. In our sorrow or loneliness or pain He calls us---"This is a necessary part of the journey. Even if it is the roughest part, it is only a part, and it will not last the whole long way. Remember where I am leading you. Remember what you will find at the end---a home and a haven and a heaven."
As Lewis said, "we're like blocks of stone, out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of His chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect. The suffering of this world is not the failure of God's love for us; it is that love in action."
Elliot says later that, "It is possible both to accept and to endure loneliness without bitterness when there is a vision of glory beyond."
I feel that this misses the mark in some ways, despite how valuable I think her writing is. For me, the most compelling reason that makes suffering endurable is not the "glory" that might or might not come, but the fundamental belief that suffering is an invitation to love. Any later glory is ultimately irrelevant to a flesh and blood man whose only basis for belief in our coming glory is rooted in faith. My neighbor is someone I don't need faith to believe in--I can shake his hand and help dig his car out of the snow. A faith that believes that our suffering, whether it be loneliness or something else, is something that can be used to gain salvation for those we love, as Peter Kreeft says, is the strongest reason, and also I believe the most beautiful reason, for accepting, enduring and embracing suffering.
This is a necessary part of the journey.
Here's a passage I read tonight in one of her books, with an admittedly lachrymose title: The Path of Loneliness.
Acceptance of discipleship is the utter abandonment of the disciple, the surrender of all rights, to the Master. This abandonment, in all cases, will mean pain. Christ listed some of the troubles His followers could expect, so that they would not be taken by surprise and thus discard their faith in Him. He didn't offer immunity. He asked for trust.
As we have noted, Jesus published no false advertising. He was offering the kingdom of heaven--bliss, eternal life, fullness of joy. But He spoke of the small gate and the narrow road. He promised suffering, not escape from suffering. You cannot take up a cross and at the same time not take up a cross, or learn how to die and how not to die.
And another passage:
There are many things that God does not fix precisely because He loves us. (Emphasis is Elliot). Instead of extracting us from the problem, He calls us. In our sorrow or loneliness or pain He calls us---"This is a necessary part of the journey. Even if it is the roughest part, it is only a part, and it will not last the whole long way. Remember where I am leading you. Remember what you will find at the end---a home and a haven and a heaven."
As Lewis said, "we're like blocks of stone, out of which the sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of His chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect. The suffering of this world is not the failure of God's love for us; it is that love in action."
Elliot says later that, "It is possible both to accept and to endure loneliness without bitterness when there is a vision of glory beyond."
I feel that this misses the mark in some ways, despite how valuable I think her writing is. For me, the most compelling reason that makes suffering endurable is not the "glory" that might or might not come, but the fundamental belief that suffering is an invitation to love. Any later glory is ultimately irrelevant to a flesh and blood man whose only basis for belief in our coming glory is rooted in faith. My neighbor is someone I don't need faith to believe in--I can shake his hand and help dig his car out of the snow. A faith that believes that our suffering, whether it be loneliness or something else, is something that can be used to gain salvation for those we love, as Peter Kreeft says, is the strongest reason, and also I believe the most beautiful reason, for accepting, enduring and embracing suffering.
This is a necessary part of the journey.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Words on suffering, from the 17th century Jesuit priest, J.P. de Caussade:
Let us look upon our afflictions, whether general or particular, as God's work and not man's injustice. God, St. Augustine said, would permit no evil that his power and his goodness could not avail to turn to the great advantage of his elect. Let us, then, make use of present ills to avoid those that are everlasting and to deserve the rewards promised to Faith and to patience. The time will come and that shortly, when we shall say with David: "We have rejoiced for the days in which thou hast humbled us: for the years in which we have seen evils.
I am on the eve of my 38th birthday, and as is normal for most of us, we tend to reflect back on the year that has past, and think towards the future. It's been a rough one, but I feel that I'm a better man for it. I realize that I am still not completely over Meg. There crept within me a desperate hope that she would send me a birthday card, some meager sign that perhaps there was something still within her that still pined for me. I have to hope that this year will finally see me put that to rest completely, and to be able to embrace a hope that there is someone else out there for me. I had lunch the other day with a woman who I think is absolutely delightful, and I find myself thinking about her quite often, hoping that my interest in her is reciprocated. I'm still a bit raw, though, and have a reflexive fear that I will be rebuffed. I suppose God desires healing of that for me, and indeed, if I am rebuffed, it must be God's will. The quote above is from a book called Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence. I know that the most important area for me to be able to exercise trust in God is in the area of women and my future spouse. There's a part of me that figures I have a lot more to learn in this, so who knows what's in store for me.
And besides, didn't I just write the other day that I felt that God wanted me to be single right now? But hey, if the opportunity arises to go have lunch with a beautiful and delightful woman, who can blame me for passing that up? It's been awhile.
Let us look upon our afflictions, whether general or particular, as God's work and not man's injustice. God, St. Augustine said, would permit no evil that his power and his goodness could not avail to turn to the great advantage of his elect. Let us, then, make use of present ills to avoid those that are everlasting and to deserve the rewards promised to Faith and to patience. The time will come and that shortly, when we shall say with David: "We have rejoiced for the days in which thou hast humbled us: for the years in which we have seen evils.
I am on the eve of my 38th birthday, and as is normal for most of us, we tend to reflect back on the year that has past, and think towards the future. It's been a rough one, but I feel that I'm a better man for it. I realize that I am still not completely over Meg. There crept within me a desperate hope that she would send me a birthday card, some meager sign that perhaps there was something still within her that still pined for me. I have to hope that this year will finally see me put that to rest completely, and to be able to embrace a hope that there is someone else out there for me. I had lunch the other day with a woman who I think is absolutely delightful, and I find myself thinking about her quite often, hoping that my interest in her is reciprocated. I'm still a bit raw, though, and have a reflexive fear that I will be rebuffed. I suppose God desires healing of that for me, and indeed, if I am rebuffed, it must be God's will. The quote above is from a book called Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence. I know that the most important area for me to be able to exercise trust in God is in the area of women and my future spouse. There's a part of me that figures I have a lot more to learn in this, so who knows what's in store for me.
And besides, didn't I just write the other day that I felt that God wanted me to be single right now? But hey, if the opportunity arises to go have lunch with a beautiful and delightful woman, who can blame me for passing that up? It's been awhile.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Into Great Silence
I wasn't able to make it to a Good Friday service yesterday due to my schedule. Instead, I decided to watch a movie I've had for a few weeks now called Into Great Silence. The movie's inception began in 1984 when German filmmaker Philip Groening approached the Carthusian monks at Le Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps with the request to film their monastic way of life. They said the time was not right, and that they would get back with him in ten to fifteen years. In 2000, they called him and said that they were ready. What resulted is one of the most remarkable films I've ever seen.
The Carthusian monks lead some of the most ascetic lives on the planet, lives dedicated to silent contemplation of God. They live in cells, cut off from their brothers except for their collective calls to prayer throughout the day. They are so isolated that they are even fed through doors in their cells. There is interaction, but it is minimal, intentionally.
I find it bizarre and strange, but compelling and beautiful at the same time. By the end of the movie, I was in awe of these men who've dedicated their lives so completely to God, and when one of the eldest among them began to speak about his conception of God, I took note.
He is old, frail and blind. Based on what he said, I presume he was asked if he was afraid of dying, and this was his response:No! Why be afraid of death? It is the fate of all humans. The closer one brings oneself to God, the happier one is. It is the end of our lives. The closer one brings oneself to God, the happier one is, the faster one hurries to meet him. One should have no fear of death. On the contrary! For us, it is a great joy to find a Father once again. The past, the present, these are human. In God there is no past. Solely the present prevails. And when God sees us, He always sees our entire life. And because He is an infinitely good being, He eternally seeks our well-being. Therefore, there is no cause for worry in any of the things which happen to us. I often thank God that he let me be blinded. I am sure he let this happen for the good of my soul. It is a pity that the world has lost all sense of God. It is a pity...They have no reason to live anymore. When you abolish the thought of God, why should you go on living on this earth? One must always part from the principle that God is infinitely good, and that all of his actions are in our best interest. Because of this a Christian should always be happy, never unhappy. Because everything that happens is God's will, and it only happens for the well-being of our soul. Well, this is the most important. God is infinitely good, almighty, and he helps us. This is all one must do, and then one is happy.
I come once again to the fundamental belief that the greatest argument for Christianity is rooted in the greatest paradox that we can confront in our lives: how can a good and benevolent God allow so much suffering in the world? I believe that the only compelling answer to the problem of pain is rooted in Christ's death on the cross: ultimate evil transformed into ultimate good. This wise man, living a life of constant contemplation and devotion to God has reached the point where he views his blindness as the greatest of gifts, an expression of God's ineffable love for him. Because everything that happens is God's will, and it only happens for the well-being of our soul. These are hard words, but they ring true.
I struggle constantly with being single, wondering why and when God will bring a companion to my life. I will not lie--I suffer greatly from loneliness. As I've said many times, it is without question the daily cross that I bear, and there is no question of my picking it up. It is my existence and it pains me perpetually. I have not reached the point where I can echo what this wise man has said, that I thank God for the pain of loneliness, because it is my lot and God's will, for the betterment of my soul. But perhaps that is the lesson I'm supposed to learn though this period of a solitary life: to say with gratefulness in my heart, "thy will be done."
It has been a little over six months since I've seen or talked with Meg, and a year and a half since we ended our relationship. We were together for exactly that amount of time, and I realize that I still love her as much as I ever have. I think about her constantly, despite wishing that I was free of thoughts of her. I've tried desperately to move on from her, but I can't seem to do it. I love her, deeply, and it seems still that every day I am pained by her rejection of me.
The question I am confronted with after watching this film, and hearing this wise man's words is this: can I thank God for Meg's rejection of me, and all of the pain that I have lived with as a result of that rejection, and say that it was God's will, and more than that: that it was a gift from God for the betterment of my soul? What is more tragic, blindness or the spurning of a woman? Can I view all of the times I've been rejected by women as God's will for me, for the betterment of my well-being?
That is hard, but it seems to me the only course of action one can take, unless one desires simply to be filled with hatred and bitterness. It would be easy to become a misogynist, I suppose, when you feel so often that women take no notice of you. That's the easy path. The hard path is to thank God for the pain of rejection, simply because it must be God's will, since God is "infinitely good, and almighty, and he helps us." If that is the case, then every women who's ever rejected me has done so because it was his will, allowed for the betterment of my soul.
May I have just a fraction of the faith, trust and wisdom of that blind man.
Saturday, February 09, 2008
Chesterton Chocolates
I derive great pleasure from the beauty of simple things. A repetitive task is not onerous to me, as long as there is some sense of satisfaction to be derived from the task at hand. I think that's why I like chocolate so much. I just finished my final chocolate offering for the auction and I found dipping over five dozen individual chocolates extremely satisfying. Frustrating at times, but I was always spurred on by the chance that the next chocolate would be perfect. And when one was perfect, it made me giggle with satisfaction. I think this is just the way I'm wired. I think it's why I was able to succeed in music too--there's a lot of monotony in practicing, but once you get it right, it's extremely satisfying, perhaps more satisfying than anything else.
I'm happy with about four individual chocolates I made. And that's not to say that I'm trashing all the rest, like I might have done when I was a kid. With age comes wisdom, (at least hopefully) and I'm actually enjoying the learning process this time around without beating myself up for making some that aren't perfect. Patience with oneself is a virtue worth cultivating.
All I know is that chocolate making is the most fun I've had in a long time. And I suppose based on what I've posted the past few days, finding some fun things to do isn't a bad idea.
I'll post pictures tomorrow of my chocolates. Overall, I'm pretty proud of them--especially four of them.
Recently I heard a powerful quote from G. K. Chesterton about monotony that struck a chord with me, and when I think of making chocolates, it certainly applies.
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again,’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again,’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” -G.K. Chesterton
That's kind of how I feel about chocolate. I say let's do it again.
I'm happy with about four individual chocolates I made. And that's not to say that I'm trashing all the rest, like I might have done when I was a kid. With age comes wisdom, (at least hopefully) and I'm actually enjoying the learning process this time around without beating myself up for making some that aren't perfect. Patience with oneself is a virtue worth cultivating.
All I know is that chocolate making is the most fun I've had in a long time. And I suppose based on what I've posted the past few days, finding some fun things to do isn't a bad idea.
I'll post pictures tomorrow of my chocolates. Overall, I'm pretty proud of them--especially four of them.
Recently I heard a powerful quote from G. K. Chesterton about monotony that struck a chord with me, and when I think of making chocolates, it certainly applies.
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again,’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again,’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” -G.K. Chesterton
That's kind of how I feel about chocolate. I say let's do it again.
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