Every creature a divine word

Every creature is a divine word because it proclaims God.

-- St. Bonaventure

Obedience is the stairway of pleasure

From That Hideous Strength:

"The beauty of the female is the root of joy to the female as well as to the male, and it is no accident that the goddess of love is older and stronger then the god. To desire the desiring of her own beauty is the vanity of Lilith, but to desire the enjoying of her beauty is the obedience of Eve, and to both it is in the lover that the beloved tastes her own delightfulness. As obedience is the stairway of pleasure, so humility is the..."

--C. S. Lewis

Ed: Interesting how this quote within a quote was interrupted...

A feast of rich food: Isaiah 25:6

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,
of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

Comment on suffering from a book discussion board

Suffering is experiencing limits placed upon Truth.

Mother Teresa on longing for God

There is so much contradiction in my soul.--Such deep longing for God--so deep that it is painful--a suffering continual--and yet not wanted by God--repulsed--empty--no faith--no love--no zeal.--Souls hold no attraction--Heaven means nothing--to me it looks like an empty place--the thought of it means nothing to me and yet this torturing longing for God.--Pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything. For I am only His--so he has every right over me. I am perfectly happy to be nobody even to God....

(Blessed Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, pp 169-170)

I have His darkness

I am not alone.--I have His darkness--I have His pain--I have the terrible longing for God--to love and not to be loved. I know I have Jesus--in that unbroken union--for my mind is fixed on Him and in Him alone, in my will.

(Blessed Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light, p 223)

When at last I cling to you

When at last I cling to you with my whole being there will be no more anguish or labour for me, and my life will be alive indeed, alive because filled with you. But now it is very different. Anyone whom you fill you also uplift; but I am not full of you, and so I am a burden to myself. Joys over which I ought to weep do battle with sorrows that should be matter for joy, and I do not know which will be victorious. But I also see griefs that are evil at war in me with joys that are good, and I do not know which will win the day.

(St Augustine, Confessions, Book 10)

Body and blood reunited

I was thinking about Christ on the cross, the paschal lamb, the perfect sacrifice; how his body and blood were separated just as it is when kosher meats are prepared.

And I realized that when we receive the Eucharist, his body and blood are joined back together, reunited, made one, as we become one with him.

Biblical passages on desire

Just stumbled across a worksheet for a class presented by Randy Alcorn of Eternal Perspectives Ministries (EPM) which I'm going to check out. It contains a list of Bible passages on the idea of desire. (Ed. Note: I don't know anything about EPM, and haven't checked out the site other than this worksheet, and I am therefore not endorsing the author, the organization, or the site.)

Here is part of the introductory text of the document:

"The purpose of this assignment is to see in overview what the Bible says about desire... I've selected passages containing English words such as desire, long, want, wish, yearn, thirst, tempt and crave. There are nearly a thousand such passages, translating dozens of Hebrew and Greek words. This list is only a sampling, perhaps 20% of the passages which could be included."

1Corinthians 12:31; 14:1
2Corinthians 5:1-4
2Corinthians 7:7
2Corinthians 8:10
2Corinthians 8:13
Galatians 1:10
Galatians 5:16-26 (esp. vv. 16-17, 24)
Galatians 5:17
Galatians 5:24
Ephesians 2:1-10 (esp. v. 3)
Ephesians 4:22
Philippians 1:23
Philippians 3:6-14
Colossians 3:5-10 (esp. v.5)
1 Thessalonians 2:17-20
1 Timothy 2:4
1 Timothy 3:1
1 Timothy 5:11-12
1 Timothy 6:9
2 Timothy 2:22
2 Timothy 3:12
2 Timothy 4:3
Titus 2:11-14
Titus 3:3-5
Hebrews 2:17-18
Hebrews 4:14-16
Hebrews 10:5, 8
Hebrews 11:13-16
Hebrews 13:18
James 1:13-15
James 1:20
James 4:1-4
1Peter 1:11-12
1Peter 1:13-14
1Peter 2:2-3
1Peter 2:11
1Peter 4:2-5
2Peter 1:4
2Peter 2:18-19
2Peter 3:3
1John 2:16-17
Revelation 21:1-6
Revelation 22:1-4
Revelation 22:17

by Randy Alcorn, Eternal Perspective Ministries, 39085 Pioneer Blvd., Suite 206, Sandy, OR 97055, 503-668-5200, www.epm.org, www.randyalcorn.blogspot.com

You made us for yourself

"The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you"

--St. Augustine

An inconvenient hotel

The most miserable earthly life, seen from the perspective of heaven, looks like one night in an inconvenient hotel.

--Teresa of Avila

The world is a great inn

The world rings changes, it is never constant but in its disappointments. The world is but a great inn, where we are to stay a night or two, and be gone; what madness is it so to set our heart upon our inn, as to forget our home?

-- Thomas Watson

How beautiful the leaves

How beautiful the leaves grow old,
how full of light and color are their last days.

--John Burroughs

Prayer to a Shepherd King

I thought I had posted this several months ago, but did not.

Prayer to a Shepherd King
(Fr. Robert Dalgleish)

Your eyes find me
know me
search me
reveal me
disarm me
unclothe me
love me
delight in me
cherish me
comfort me
calm me.

Call me
draw me
entice me closer to you
my beloved Shepherd
my sovereign King!

How do I remember you?
How do I not forget about you
in the busyness of my life?
Ah; To listen for your whisperings,
to look for your revealings
to sense your appearings.

O Lord, forgive me.
I am so slow of mind and hard of heart.

Renew my mind
renew my heart
draw me anew to you
awaken my love for you
so that my very heart's yearnings
will awaken me to your callings.

O Lord, may this New Year
be one in which I look for
and find you
again and again
every day.

Amen

April

From The Wasteland:

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

--T.S. Eliot

There is no other stream

From The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis:

“If you’re thirsty, you may drink.”

For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink,” and of course she remembered what Scrubb had said about animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time and the voice was not like a man’s. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion. “I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill. “Then drink,” said the Lion. “May I -- could I-- would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill. The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic. “Will you promise not to--do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill. “I make no promise,” said the Lion. Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer. “Do you eat girls?” she said. “I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill. “Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion. “Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

“It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion-- no one who had seen his stern face could do that--and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn’t need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once. Before she tasted it she had been intending to make a dash away from the Lion the moment she had finished. Now, she realized that this would be on the whole the most dangerous thing of all.”

Seeking rest in trivial things

This is the reason why we have no ease of heart or soul, for we are seeking our rest in trivial things that cannot satisfy, and not seeking to know God, almighty, all-wise, all good. He is true rest. It is his will that we should know him, and his pleasure that we should rest in him. Nothing less will satisfy us.

--Julian of Norwich

A web of words

I want to spin a web of words
to draw you in
and wrap you in gauzy strands
a silvery cocoon of thought
not to eat you
but to keep you by my side
as I sit and weave.

--Chantelle Franc

Play is not enough

No one who really wants to count for God can afford to play at Christianity.

-- H. A. Ironside

On Cabbages and Pigs

From The Baptism of Imagination: A conversation with Peter Kreeft:

"Well, the cabbages-and-pigs image recalls John Stuart Mill's statement. He said it is better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. So, if you go to a counselor to overcome your dissatisfaction and exchange it for satisfaction, I think that can be very foolish. There's a good satisfaction and a bad satisfaction, a good dissatisfaction and a bad dissatisfaction. If you have a lover's quarrel with the world because you have been taught to expect happiness from this world yet you haven't found it and don't know why, that's a very good dissatisfaction. If a counselor throws cold water on the fire of that discontent, great harm is done. It's worth having the bad discontent in order to preserve the good discontent, which is the search for God. I think discontent is the second best thing in the world, because it brings us to God."
.
.
.
"One of the reasons Christians are generally happier than nonbelievers is that they don't expect so much of the world. They look at the world as a gymnasium, or a training ground, or, if they are terribly pessimistic, as a prison. The world can be a wonderful barracks, a fantastic motel, but it's a lousy home."

My favorite drink

"What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others."

--Diogenes

From The Baptism of Imagination: A conversation with Peter Kreeft:

"Faith and hope and love all have a moreness to them. Faith means I trust you more than I can prove, hope means I hope for more than I can attain and grasp, and love means there is more in you than I can possibly love worthily."

Choice

I'd always thought that "choice" was a rather cowardly way to refer to something as seismic as abortion, but recently realized that it's actually a very appropriate term. All of life's nobility and destruction hinge on choice.

Despite God's direction, we chose to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and continue to choose it today. The choice between self donation or self preservation is ever before us.

We are all called to choose, and the choices are very, very hard.

Birth pangs of God

I wonder what the birth pangs of God were like, when Jesus proceeded from him?

Blessed are women

Three of my friends are expecting, and so I've been thinking about babies and loving God.

We are so very blessed to be women. In bearing new life, we are given a very special way in which to contemplate love of God. We can ponder Mary holding her precious son, and put ourselves in her place, transferring the intensity of love we felt for our own new child to this one, who is Lord of All.

Women can explore love of Him in ways which men cannot.

It is a very great gift. We are so very blessed.

On statements one should not believe

I wonder if the big bad wolf smiled down into that child's face and toothily whispered:

"Don't worry, I won't bite you."

The Presence of Love

The Presence of Love by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

And in Life's noisiest hour,
There whispers still the ceaseless Love of Thee,
The heart's Self-solace and soliloquy.

You mould my Hopes, you fashion me within;
And to the leading Love-throb in the Heart
Thro' all my Being, thro' my pulse's beat;
You lie in all my many Thoughts, like Light,
Like the fair light of Dawn, or summer Eve
On rippling Stream, or cloud-reflecting Lake.

And looking to the Heaven, that bends above you,
How oft! I bless the Lot that made me love you.

Happy New Year

May this year be one of wonder and expectation.

Amen.

Breath of Heaven (song lyrics)

Listen here...

I have traveled
many moonless nights,
Cold and weary
with a babe inside,
And I wonder what I’ve done.
Holy father you have come,
And chosen me now
to carry your son.

I am waiting
in a silent prayer.
I am frightened
by the load I bear.
In a world as cold as stone,
Must I walk this path alone?
Be with me now.
Be with me now.

Breath of heaven,
Hold me together,
Be forever near me,
Breath of heaven.
Breath of heaven,
Lighten my darkness,
Pour over me your holiness,
For you are holy.
Breath of heaven.

Do you wonder
as you watch my face,
If a wiser one
should have had my place,
But I offer all I am
For the mercy of your plan.
Help me be strong.
Help me be.
Help me.

Breath of heaven,
Hold me together,
Be forever near me,
Breath of heaven.
Breath of heaven,
Lighten my darkness,
Pour over me your holiness,
For you are holy.

Breath of heaven,
Hold me together,
Be forever near me,
Breath of heaven.
Breath of heaven,
Lighten my darkness,
Pour over me your holiness,
For you are holy.
Breath of heaven.
Breath of heaven.
Breath of heaven.

Love is a hungry infant

How strange it is
to love a love that must be hushed
like a hungry infant
crying out in a place of silence.

--Chantelle Franc

The most in love

A believer is surely a lover, yea, of all lovers the most in love.

--Sören Kierkegaard

My favorite gift

One of the many gifts bestowed on me this Christmas was from God himself.

Our Christmas Eve service was a series of hymns and readings, and I helped choreograph at a rehearsal last Monday night. Some changes were needed as various reader's were not available, and I volunteered to take on any readings that were open. The guys shuffled the readings around, and assigned me one, but I didn't look at it until the next day. When I did, I discovered that it was Luke 1:26-58; the annunciation and the visitation.

God's generosity and personal attention never ceases to amaze me.

Clean up time

Ah... the hubub is mostly over. What sweet relief.

The mystery of life...

The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.

-- Aart van der Leeuw

Thomas, my twin

Another thought on Thomas.

How like him we are as we probe around our faith. Jesus stands before us willingly and we thrust our fingers into His wounds, stretching and pulling them as we selfishly seek satisfaction.

The reason that Thomas is a twin is that we are just like him.

Forgive me Lord, and heal my disbelief.

Merry Christmas

A very holy and merry Christmas to all. May God bless us every one.

Our fiat

During mass on Sunday it occurred to me that our yes may actually be harder than Mary's was. We generally do not have the benefit of a visit by an angel, or a tangible experience of union with the Holy Spirit as she did.

Monday's gospel reading described Thomas' disbelief, and seemed to potentially confirm this line of thought when it tells us that blessed are we who have not seen and yet believe.

Reflect on your blessings

Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

-- Charles Dickens

Thank you

Our Lady of the Snows: thank you for safe arrivals.

And now for some off-topic social commentary

Or is it?

It's OK, I'm Attractive.

C.S. Lewis on the Pain of God's Best

We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.

-- C. S. Lewis

Protect those who travel

It is snowing hard.

Blessed Mother, be with those who are traveling...

On joy and pain

From Ministry and Imagination, Ch 6:

"The fact is that contemplatives, who make the inward journey into the unconscious, frequently have spoken of the joy and pain, apparent opposites, that confronts them: the symbols and the diabols. Again and again I am reminded also of comments Castaneda makes, or rather quotations he records from his shaman. It is only when one claims to understand, that he is really 'in a mess.' The task of the 'warrior' is to achieve a balance between terror and wonder. The numinous and hidden quality of the vision, combined with the seeming multivocality of its symbols, are a common perception with those who surrender to the unconscious. Marghanita Laski, as we said before, has noted that 'ecstasy' has both its fearful and attractive dimensions, just as Otto spoke of the numinous as terrifying and fascinating."

On feeling God's presence

From Ministry and Imagination, Ch 6:

"It seems to me that when people say that they 'talk with Jesus' or 'feel Jesus in their hearts,' they are referring in part to a very superficial level of the unconscious, which we would identify by a kind of warm nostalgia they associate with pleasant memories of their parents, probably quite distorted, or of the 'good old days.' This is not really the content of the unconscious at any level of depth. The feelings of the unconscious are more frequently identified with a sense of joy, as described by C.S. Lewis in his autobiography; a strange warmth, such as John Wesley testified to at Aldersgate; a celestial orgasm, as Teresa of Avila relates; a sublime melody, as the fourteenth-century mystic, Richard Rolle, claims; or the oceanic experience such as Castaneda himself records."

The soul that walks in love...

The soul that walks in love neither tires others nor grows tired.

-- John of the Cross

On Passion

From Ministry and Imagination, Ch 6:

"The fact that 'passion' means both suffering and a frenzied release of the libido is not altogether accidental. Sexual intercourse and suffering have long been associated in man's mind. There is the notion that in coitus we die a little. It is also true that we pursue a vision that lies just outside our grasp. Ovid wrote somewhat facetiously Omne animal post coitum triste ('Every animal after coitus is sad'), and it is true (even without qualifications). Somehow we can sustain the sexual union, but we should come away with our routine existence more informed by what it might become. This is as true for any deep relationship as it is for mating, and it depends upon our willingness to trust ourselves, to let go of our self-centeredness in that meeting.

That very act of letting go, fueled by the mating urge (Eros), renders us vulnerable. Eros is no respecter of the conventions of society, as necessary as they are. Passion draws us into the abyss, with that curious mixture of pain and longing--that strange bittersweet feeling we never outgrow--and we risk that we might find ourselves in the beloved. Our reason tells us we are only foolish, and it is half right. There is only a thin line between 'puppy love' and the passion of the mating bond. The proof lies in the return to the world of obligation and role. Have we glimpsed in the mystery of love that which enables us to live out our life with a deeper compassion for ourselves and those whom we serve?"

Everything comes from love

Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind.

-- Catherine of Siena

Litany of Humility

Litany of Humility

Written by Cardinal Merry del Val. He was accustomed to recite this prayer daily after the celebration of Holy Mass.

O Jesus meek and humble of heart, Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed,
From the desire of being loved,
From the desire of being extolled,
From the desire of being honored,
From the desire of being praised,
From the desire of being preferred to others,
From the desire of being consulted,
From the desire of being approved,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated,
From the fear of being despised,
From the fear of suffering rebukes,
From the fear of being calumniated,
From the fear of being forgotten,
From the fear of being ridiculed,
From the fear of being wronged,
From the fear of being suspected,
Deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I,
That others may be esteemed more than I,
That in the opinion of the world, others may increase, and I may decrease,
That others may be chosen and I set aside,
That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
That others may be preferred to me in everything,
That others may become holier than I, provided that I become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it. Amen.

No electric blanket needed

I took a nap yesterday afternoon (ah, glorious!) and was again blessed with a supernatural warmth, like a blanket of warm water draped over my body. Part of the reason it feels so unusual is that the sensation is only on the top, as if the blankets were electric. It's not the kind of overheated sweatiness all around you which makes you throw back the covers for relief. It's a directional, radiant heat that nearly pulses. It reminds me a bit of the heat you feel when standing before a fire or a woodstove.

This has happened a handful of times throughout the last year or so, most typically while napping. It keeps me in a state of semi-wakefulness, in which I simply luxuriate in the experience.

Truly glorious.

God's gifts are so interesting...

A different state of being

Prayer this morning was nearly exquisite.

Sometimes in prayer I am transported to another state of being. It was not quite ecstatic today, but could have developed into that depth I think under different (and quieter) circumstances.

While worshiping I again felt the burning sensation of love and absence around my heart, and I imagined His hands wrapping around it, cradling it, sheltering it, warming it.

Protecting it.

I was reminded of God gathering His chicks together into the comfortable warmth of His bosom, and of us being sheltered beneath His wings.

But the image of those hands cradling my heart were the strongest, and the truest.

And the warmth and burning sensation grew as I worshiped Him.

If this is even a hint of the perpetual worship that is to occur in heaven, I can hardly wait. I can see how you could never grow tired of it; it is a different state of being.

Not one blade of grass

There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world
that is not intended to make us rejoice.

-- John Calvin

Pain and delight at the same time

This passage from Ministry and Imagination reminds me of my intense experience of loss while on retreat:

"What we are aware of as a fulfillment of our religious quest on the primary level is the ambiguous feeling of both fear and love. We find ourselves gazing into a mystery, which would seem to engage us as an overweening power and yet flood us with an unimaginable assurance of worth. Such experience is not of equal impact in all individuals. Laski described ecstasies of withdrawal and intensity; and perhaps one person is more aware of their smallness and alienation before the mystery, while another is rewarded with the gift of wholeness and unity. At the same time, I do know that reporters as different as St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) and the contemporary American anthropologist, Carlos Castaneda, describe mystical or transcendental experiences in which there is an intense level of pain and delight at the same time."

Love of person for person

To have known God vaguely but very really in nature and humanity, and then to discover him translated into a human comrade, is to find awe quickened into devotion, and reverence into love. The Eternal may stir me in certain moods and certain elements of my being: only love of person for person can possess me entire.

--Charles Raven

Prayer of abandonment

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.

Joy vs. unbelief

The opposite of joy is not sorrow. It is unbelief.

-- Leslie Weatherhead

Joy vs. happiness

The Bible talks plentifully about joy, but it nowhere talks
about a "happy Christian." Happiness depends on what happens;
joy does not. Remember, Jesus Christ had joy, and He prays "that
they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves."

-- Oswald Chambers

Mother Teresa on joy

One filled with joy preaches without preaching.

-- Mother Teresa

Survival of the prayed up

World's collided last night, and everyone survived. Something tells me our Blessed Mother helped, because rosaries were wielded in one of them.

As Fr. Corapi says: My mama wears combat boots.

Fuse me to the cross

While praying yesterday God sent me lots of good stuff, though I don't remember most now. I should keep my journal handy to capture His gifts.

The strongest of images He sent was of His cross being searing hot. I regularly imagine physically uniting myself to Christ on the cross, sometimes hanging with him, my back to His chest, sometimes clinging to the cross directly. In this meditation, I pressed up against and wrapped my arms around it, and it was so hot that the flesh which touched it was fused, so that the cross and I became one.

It was an agony of pain but it was right and good and required.

Gift from the Sea

A friend at work gave me a lovely little book by Anne Morrow Lindbergh called Gift from the Sea. I can tell it will be a book to savor. This from the end of the first, small chapter:

"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach--waiting for a gift from the sea."

I need to fast...

I am all too often astonishingly pathetic and self indulgent.

Which reminds me; I need to fast more.

When world's collide

I stand upon the precipice of worlds colliding, and tremble.

Life, change, and cultural relevance

I had several good discussions with my 20 year old daughter over the Thanksgiving holiday. One of them had to do with my objection to Catholic seminaries which are not loyal to magisterial teaching. In this discussion, she commented that religion which does not change is dead.

One of the books I read during my brief stint at one such seminary suggested that it is the job of each generation to renew and reform the church and the liturgy.

I think both of these statements are accurate within the context of truth. Each generation needs to find ways to present the truth in a way in which the culture can most effectively respond to it. But the emphasis must be on the truth being the truth.

Truth stands outside of cultural relevance. It is what it is.

Change for the sake of cultural conformity and "relevance" is not life, it is certain death.

Joy vs. pleasure

God offers us joy, and we waste our lives searching for pleasure.

Victor Hugo on Prayer

“There are thoughts which are prayers, there are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.”

– Victor Hugo

Happy Eucharist

May you have a happy Thanksgiving, a most blessed Eucharist, today.

C.S. Lewis on Forgiveness

“Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin, the sin that is left over without any excuse, after all allowances have been made, and seeing it in all its horror, meanness, and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it. That, and only that, is forgiveness.”

--C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis on Being Called

From The Silver Chair:

"'You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you' said the Lion."

Victor Hugo on Happiness

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

-- Victor Hugo

C.S. Lewis on Joy (4)

From Surprised by Joy:

…an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want.

The duty of delight

From the postscript of The Long Loneliness:

It is not always easy to be joyful; to keep in mind the duty of delight.

--Dorothy Day

The two become one

I was thinking this morning about human love, and how romantic love includes an intense desire for union with the beloved. This type of desire is really a search for completion, for wholeness, and is a reflection of our need for union with and completion through God.

For a moment this seemed like a bad thing. Like a misplacement, like disorder. But as I thought further I realized that it is a God-given thing and is actually rightly ordered. God gives us a desire for completion with and through other humans because each of us is a reflection of God, a carrier of God. When we become one with another we are in fact a more complete reflection of God's fullness, though still incomplete.

The two become one as we will eventually become one with Him.

For now we see through a glass dimly. Just imagine the face to face...

Do not weep

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

-- Baruch Spinoza

Perpetual fast

I am on a perpetual fast.

Please; may it do the work which needs to be done.

Freelance Monotheism

My priest has been pointing me to wonderful audio interviews on various topics lately. This one, for example, is titled the Freelance Monotheism of Karen Armstrong:

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/armstrong/lists.shtml

I'm still listening to the interview, but I think Karen may tap into the key to mystagogia. She speaks of the study of religion as requiring a "science of compassion", meaning a search for knowledge through 'feeling with'.

She also says that theology is poetry, religion is art, and ritual leads to transcendence.

Lovely stuff...

C.S. Lewis on Craving

From Pilgrim's Regress:

“What is universal is not the particular picture, but the arrival of some message, not perfectly intelligible, which wakes this desire and sets men longing for something East or West of the world; something possessed, if at all, only in the act of desiring it, and lost so quickly that the craving itself becomes craved; something that tends inevitably to be confused or even with vile satisfactions lying close to hand, yet which is able, if any man faithfully live through the dialectic of its successive births and deaths, to lead him at last to where true joys are to be found”.

Happy Birthday

The insufficiency of a mere "happy birthday" is staggering.

Desire for more

“In every person there is a passionate, driving desire for more… The dilemma is that our longings for material joy are almost always partially blocked; our desires for better health and deeper relationships are never entirely possible; and the illusion of world peace seems no more attainable than the gold at the end of the rainbow. Our passion is more than usually stymied. The world simply does not bend to the desires that roar or whimper inside us. Our desires – from picking the quickest line at the bank to the overwhelming hope that our children will walk righteously with the Lord – are rarely satisfied in a way that relieves the ache of incompleteness… Our heart seems to rage against the ache. Our typical response to the heartbreak and sorrow of disappointment is murderous rage… We want someone to pay”.

C.S. Lewis on Longing

From Till We Have Faces:

"It was when I was happiest that I longed most. ... The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing ... to find the place where all the beauty came from."

C.S. Lewis on Joy (3)

“All joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago and further away or still ‘about to be’”.

Idealization versus idolotry

A friend got me thinking about idealization.

Unhealthy, unuseful, and unholy idealization clearly exists, especially in romance. But not all idealization falls into that camp.

For example, in some ways I idealize my children. I think the best of them and recognize their wonderful capabilities and giftings. They are shining stars to me and always will be. They are beacons of what love means. They have changed my life and helped form me, for which I will be eternally grateful.

But just because all these things are true doesn't mean I don't recognize their weaknesses and frailties. I know full well that they are far from perfect. While their strengths and beauty are foremost in my mind and heart, I am still aware of their faults.

The two are not mutually exclusive.

Not all idealization is idolatry.

C.S. Lewis on Answers

From Till We Have Faces:

"I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?"

--C.S. Lewis

No thin veneer

do you think
the purple passion of my love
a thin veneer?
easily cracked?
my love is miles high
and oceans wide
my love is layers thick
and fathoms deep
and any rain of hurt that falls
will water the fruit
which ripens on love's peak

--Chantelle Franc

Dreams of Exodus 1:22

On Saturday night I had a disturbing dream; I seem to be back in a phase of troubled dreaming.

I was at a Disney-esque theme park, standing on the bank of a river which represented Pharaoh's command at the time of Moses' infancy. The water flowed from my right to my left, and scattered across the waters were naked babies floating on small rectangles of wood. Some of them were animatronically kicking a leg in the air and turning over. Others lay fetally curled as if trying to stay warm in the chill water. One model could open it's eyes, but the water lapped over it's mouth and so it could not cry, despite the terror and cold and abandonment.

And the silent parade of sacrificed babies floated on and on.

So strange...

C.S. Lewis on Lust

From Stewart McAllister's CS Lewis's Argument from Desire:

“Someone who wanted to object to this argument might reply with the modern view that ‘divine dissatisfaction’, a constant search for something beyond what we have, is a characteristic valuable for survival. Thus its existence and persistence can be explained on grounds of evolution by natural selection. The price one pays for taking this line is that it makes the desires in question unsatisfiable in principle. If our ‘infinite longings’ do not mean that an infinite object exists to satisfy them, then they mean that we shall never be satisfied”.

“They claim that all our highest desires, whether they are ethical, religious, or aesthetic, are the material products of a lower-order desire (one that could have evolved) that has been first repressed and then sublimated in another form. Great art is, like our daydreams, just another type of wish fulfillment. What we call love is merely a sublimated form of that instinctual lust which lies buried deep in our unconscious.

The lust is primary, originary, natural thing; love is but the artificial, socially acceptable form that lust takes when it is filtered through our elaborate system of psychological defense mechanisms”.

“Why, Lewis asks, must we say that love is a sublimation of lust? Is it not equally possible that lust is a falling away from love? Why must love be considered a projection from below, or evolution? May it not be rather an incarnation from above, a transposition from a heavenly key into an earthly one? Is not the universal human experience that of a search for higher things that goes terribly astray? Of a ‘looking for love’ that goes awry and devolves into lust”?

But who created Him?

My son went to church with me yesterday; a rare occurrence. It is hard to know what he thought, as he doesn't say much. I know he finds my faith confusing in this milieu of radical atheism. But as I tucked him in last night and gave him his blessing, he asked a question which coincidentally had also been raised by a young woman at the retreat:

If God made all things, where did -he- come from?

A good question.

My initial response was that he always was, and that it is a mystery. Not a very satisfactory response, needless to say.

But then the Holy Spirit reminded me that he is outside of time, which is actually pretty helpful. We think of things in terms of pre-existence, existence, and post-existence. But all those things are constructs of time. He is the creator of time, and there is no time before him.

Man asked God's name, and he replied "I Am."

And ever shall He be.

C.S. Lewis on Tribulation

God, who foresaw your tribulation, has specially formed you to go through it, not without pain but without stain.

-- C. S. Lewis

He suffers.

As I prayed the other day, I feebly attempted to unite my sins and suffering to the cross and pictured wrapping my arms around Christ pinned there, trying to hold on to it.

And I realized that while this is what He asks us to do, and what He wants us to do, the very action of clinging to it and to Him causes Him pain.

No matter what, He suffers.

Elixer of God

"Our creative discontent, that which drives us to imagine an alternative reality, is the image/imagination of God beating in our breast. The cosmos is pregnant with hints that guide our imaginings. We are called to heal the world in the image of our most beautiful imaginings. The eros of imagination is the elixir of God running through the universe."

--Mordechai Gafni

J.E.S.U.S.

My sin is a wound which seeps, spreading infection.

St. Jeanne de Chantal (one of my patrons) is known for having taken a heated knife and carving the name Jesus in the flesh above her heart.

I think she did it to have a visual reminder of who it is she was to love.

I feel like I need that too, along with the courage it would take to make the cuts. But I think I would carve it across my face, with the S on the bridge of my nose, so that I would see it in the mirror throughout the day rather than just when getting dressed or undressed.

The beginning of creation

“Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.”

--George Bernard Shaw

Over full and trembling

"My heart is a love-filled glass, over full and trembling to be poured out."

--Chantelle Franc

These words make me think of Christ's heart for mankind, so full of a love which will not be received.

Paint Paradise

“You have your brush and your colors, paint paradise and in you go.”

--Nikos Kazantzakis

Prayers of fire

God gave me a glimpse of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane during the retreat.

I saw him praying for his disciples, for all his children who were about to betray him, and for all of us who continue to betray him now. I imagined him struggling against his humanity to pray for them, and winning. And the prayers felt like a fiery fist plunging into his chest and ripping out his heart.

But he prayed anyway.

And as he prayed, he longed for home and cried out to his father "How long?"

Both and

I've been exploring the dagger beneath the jeweled scabbard, and thinking about the god of the grey mountain in CS Lewis' Till We Have Faces. The god required the sacrifice of a pure young woman, and it was thought that he would devour her.

I often feel like that god; greedy, self indulgent, consuming.

But as it turns out, the god does not actually devour her, though he does take her away from family and friends, and transform her. It turns out that he gives her great love and mystical riches.

One central theme of this book is duality, dual natures. The god is both selfish and generous. The virgin is both delusional and lucid. The virgin's sister is both ugly and beautiful. It is a book of "both and".

And so, I suppose, am I.

Gee I sound sappy

I just reread this morning's posting, which I actually wrote yesterday. Man do I sound like a sadsack! It didn't come out the way it felt. I guess that's always the challenge of writing; trying to find words for what is wordless.

I want to go home...

I was on retreat this past weekend. I'm not sure how the other women manage to return home energized and refueled because I seem to come home worn out and heartsick. Part of that is from being on the prayer team, but not all of it.

Here are some thoughts from my priest on retreating:

Retreating gives us a chance to see ourselves as we are at that moment and it's often not a pretty sight… initially. At first the silence screams and the soul retreats into activity - mental and physical activity. We run away from the bright light of solitude.

But if we don't run from the penetrating silence we will see what needs to be seen. We will experience the redemption that will come with listening contemplation. We will receive the embrace of self-acceptance and the rest of God's embrace, or maybe it's first the rest of God's embrace and then the embrace of self-acceptance.

When preparing for retreat, try to get in touch with your desire for a more intimate communion with yourself and with God, for a freer and richer interior life. It's the difference between living in a bachelor's pad and dwelling in a richly and elaborately decorated old mansion with lots of fascinating and mysterious rooms that have still to be discovered.

It was not a silent retreat, but God still used the time away to communicate with me viscerally, just as He did at the last one. Once again He put me in touch with the ache of being separated from Him. Last year the pain was that of a separated lover, with the strength of mourning. This year it was more like the pain of a young child away at camp for the first time; my soul cried out to go home. It was tinged with a sense of abandonment, a bewildered hurt at being intentionally left behind. My heart begged "Please come and get me, please take me home..."

He made me look at myself in bright light, and I didn't like what I saw.

I feel abandoned to my own weakness.

Retired from dreaming

"Too many of us have retired from dreaming."

--Fr. Robert Dalgleish

Filled senses

In yesterday's sermon, my priest asked us to imagine what heaven will be like. One thought was that all of our senses will be completely filled.

That made me think of John Denver's Annie's Song, the lyrics of which are below. (OK, OK, I concede to having plebeian tastes in music, but this song still makes my soul swell.)

You fill up my senses
Like a night in the forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again

Come let me love you
Let me give my life to you
Let me drown in your laughter
Let me die in your arms
Let me lay down beside you
Let me always be with you
Come let me love you
Come love me again

Love within time

Within time, love seems to be both beautiful and terrible.
I wonder what it will be like outside of time?