Hopefully not...

I don't fear death at all, though I do fear certain methods of dying. For example, while topping off the air pressure in a tire this morning, I remembered my fear of dying by exploding, over-full tire.

Eschatological Procreation

I wonder what sort of procreation will occur in the fulfillment of time, with our resurrected bodies and Christ as our bridegroom?

An apple by any other name

I sought the impossible;
a word to describe you.
The closest I came
was
delicious.

--Chantelle Franc

Victorious denial

I realized yesterday that all my greatest victories, my greatest conquests, have been acts of submission and self denial.

His fruit is sweet to my mouth

Warning: here goes my mind again...

I heard part of a Christopher West talk on the Theology of the Body over the weekend, and once again my mind traveled to interesting places. He echoed one of my favorite topics of contemplation, saying that all of the sacraments reflect the essential reality of Christianity as a marital covenant between us (the bride) and God (the bridegroom). He spoke of how we are to understand the Song of Songs, and touched on communion as consummation.

My mental meanderings connected to thoughts I'd had at mass that morning, about how the placing of His body upon my tongue seems too rushed, too formulaic, too much of one-more-person-in-an-assembly-line. I thought of how lovely it would be to linger with His hand approaching, then resting against my mouth; His body approaching His bride...

I believe in the wisdom of a celibate priesthood for many reasons, but began to wonder what it would be like to be married to a priest.

What would it be like if your husband celebrated the mass with you alone, standing in persona Christi before you, delivering Himself to His bride first through the precious species, and then through his/His body itself?

What would it be like to consummate both weddings in the Eucharistic celebration, the three of you whispering the closing prayers together at the end?

We will not desire candy in heaven.

At Jacob's Well

This is the most beautiful thing I've read in a very long time. Needless to say, it comforts me.

At Jacob's Well

Here's what I want to know about the woman
carrying her water-jar to Jacob's well
outside the town of Sychar, in Samaria:
what charms, what freshness bubbled up
from which corner of her heart, and made her the oasis
that she was? Five husbands and a lover
come one by one to slake their thirst in her,
and still some water-truce holds in Sychar, protects
this frank green spring from all polluting shame;
and now another thirsty man, this foreigner,
sits asking, and again her charms bubble up
like the water, like her questions. Could that be
what enchants them all, her way of asking
straight to the heart of things? And did she know,
before he spoke, how long her heart had thirsted
to be answered the same way? Hear the dance
of their talk, these strangers, as they sit together
on the path to Jacob's well, speak in circles
around the deep water: thirst and drinking,
husbands and lovers, mountain and temple,
Spirit and truth--askings and answers
bowing in, leaning back, swayed and spun
to the beat of two hidden drums. Here's what
I wonder about the woman, dancing back now
to the village, her water-jar left behind
for him to drink from: did she notice
what the disciples half-saw, how deep he had drunk
from their talk, from their dance? See the gleam
in his dark eyes, like sunlight sparking deep
on well-water; see his toes tap inside dusty sandals
in time to the dancer's steps; now see him rise
and laugh, shake his head, rinsed by her charms,
sated by her questions, enchanted by her thirsty
generous heart, a vessel after his own heart,
a dancer who matches his own steps in the dance
of ask and answer, of Spirit courting soul.

--Elizabeth A. Nelson

Peace among the thorns

Just saw the following as a closing salutation in a mysticism discussion group:

"Peace among the thorns."

I think I might have to start using that.

View from a Monday morning

Striving for virtue is tedious.

Eros in all his splendour

From The Four Loves (Ch 4):

It is in the grandeur of Eros that the seeds of danger are concealed. He has spoken like a god. His total commitment, his reckless disregard of happiness, his transcendence of self-regard, sound like a message from the eternal world. And yet it cannot, just as it stands, be the voice of God Himself. For Eros, speaking with that very grandeur and displaying that very transcendence of self, may urge to evil as well as to good. Nothing is shallower than the belief that a love which leads to sin is always qualitatively lower more animal or more trivial than one which leads to faithful, fruitful and Christian marriage. The love which leads to cruel and perjured unions, even to suicide-pacts and murder, is not likely to be wandering lust or idle sentiment. It may well be Eros in all his splendour; heart-breakingly sincere; ready for every sacrifice except renunciation.

Silk and incense

With you I would be
silk
and incense.

--Chantelle Franc

Teach thy tongue

Teach thy tongue to say "I do not know," and thou shalt progress.

-- Maimonides

Wild and undisciplined Christianity

Recently my BP described the church universal as being like "...an English country garden - wild and undisciplined but beautiful and blessed to the eyes of our sovereign Lord".

Lovely, no?

Effervescing into twilight

I lay on the border of dreams
desire
like wind keening
through empty spaces
heart beating
to the rhythm of your name
while
you-shaped emptiness
expands to consume me
effervescing
into sparkling twilight.
Now
I am awake
and hungry for you still.

--Chantelle Franc

If only the rest of the clergy understood it as well

This is what my BP (beloved priest) does, and encourages us to do.

From chapter 4 of Lilith:

'The sun broke through the clouds, and the raindrops flashed and sparkled on the grass. The raven was walking over it.

"You will wet your feet!" I cried.

"And mire my beak," he answered, immediately plunging it deep in the sod, and drawing out a great wriggling red worm. He threw back his head, and tossed it in the air. It spread great wings, gorgeous in red and black, and soared aloft.

"Tut! tut!" I exclaimed; "you mistake, Mr. Raven: worms are not the larvæ of butterflies!"

"Never mind," he croaked; "it will do for once! I'm not a reading man at present, but sexton at the--at a certain graveyard--cemetery, more properly--in--at--no matter where!"

"I see! you can't keep your spade still: and when you have nothing to bury, you must dig something up! Only you should mind what it is before you make it fly! No creature should be allowed to forget what and where it came from!"

"Why?" said the raven.

"Because it will grow proud, and cease to recognise its superiors."

No man knows it when he is making an idiot of himself.

"Where do the worms come from?" said the raven, as if suddenly grown curious to know.

"Why, from the earth, as you have just seen!" I answered.

"Yes, last!" he replied. "But they can't have come from it first-- for that will never go back to it!" he added, looking up.

I looked up also, but could see nothing save a little dark cloud, the edges of which were red, as if with the light of the sunset.

"Surely the sun is not going down!" I exclaimed, struck with amazement.

"Oh, no!" returned the raven. "That red belongs to the worm."

"You see what comes of making creatures forget their origin!" I cried with some warmth.

"It is well, surely, if it be to rise higher and grow larger!" he returned. "But indeed I only teach them to find it!"

"Would you have the air full of worms?"

"That is the business of a sexton. If only the rest of the clergy understood it as well!"

In went his beak again through the soft turf, and out came the wriggling worm. He tossed it in the air, and away it flew.'

On a multitudinously complicated significance

I came across a passage Thursday night which does a decent job of conveying the difficulty I have describing what God whispers to me.

From chapter 9 of George MacDonald's Lilith:

"Here I interrupt my narrative to remark that it involves a constant struggle to say what cannot be said with even an approach to precision, the things recorded being, in their nature and in that of the creatures concerned in them, so inexpressibly different from any possible events of this economy, that I can present them only by giving, in the forms and language of life in this world, the modes in which they affected me--not the things themselves, but the feelings they woke in me. Even this much, however, I do with a continuous and abiding sense of failure, finding it impossible to present more than one phase of a multitudinously complicated significance, or one concentric sphere of a graduated embodiment. A single thing would sometimes seem to be and mean many things, with an uncertain identity at the heart of them, which kept constantly altering their look. I am indeed often driven to set down what I know to be but a clumsy and doubtful representation of the mere feeling aimed at, none of the communicating media of this world being fit to convey it, in its peculiar strangeness, with even an approach to clearness or certainty. Even to one who knew the region better than myself, I should have no assurance of transmitting the reality of my experience in it. While without a doubt, for instance, that I was actually regarding a scene of activity, I might be, at the same moment, in my consciousness aware that I was perusing a metaphysical argument."

Spring

Spring hopes eternal.

Blossoming of desire

In prayer this morning I pondered what happens to our desires when we leave this world; desires which are often tarnished with a verdigris of sin.

My first thought was that they would burn away like dross as our metal is purified.

But that is too simple and too dismissive of beauty.

Then I wondered if these desires might get consumed by the burning fire of love for our God, that the beatific vision would enrapture them into it's raging core of flame. And rather than simply being burned away, they would feed the fire that is Him, and grow it.

Better, this explanation, but still a bit shallow.

I finally concluded that the desires of this world which we carry must blossom and bloom after death. Instead of being removed or subsumed, they expand and grow until our whole being burns with love and desire and passion for all of creation, rather than for little pieces of it.

Just as His being does.

I can't wait to find out the truth.

The three become one

I recently sat in a small group celebrating the morning office, and listened to our voices united in praying the Lord's prayer.

My mind wandered where it wanders, and I wondered what it might be like to recite the prayer responsively while in the preliminary steps of lovemaking.

What would it be like to turn lovemaking into worship?

Would the three become one?

(Did I mention that I sometimes wonder about my mind?)

This saying is hard; who can accept it?

The other day I had a thought which feels both intensely right and disturbingly wrong.

It came while pondering the scourging scene from Mel Gibson's The passion of the Christ. Christ's mother and Mary the Magdalene used white cloths to try and collect His precious blood which was spilled and splattered over the stone pavement around the whipping post. In addition to the blood, you could see scraps of flesh which had been ripped from his body by the barbs of the scourge.

As I meditated on this scene, I thought about the spot becoming forever holy through such an outpouring.

Here is the disturbing part:

I desired to eat those torn pieces of His body, and even lick up the blood which the women must have had to leave behind.

I recognize how grotesque this sounds, and yet I still desire it, and think that it is the only right and reverent thing to do.

Sometimes I wonder about my mind...

Magnetic North

My heart is a compass needle
and you are north.

--Chantelle Franc

Wisdom from a Celestial Seasonings box

Bread and water can so easily be toast and tea.

--Unknown

Foot washing 2009

What a Holy Week it was! Each year is differently profound.

In mid-March I pondered whether Mary's gift of foot washing and anointing may have been inspirational to Jesus later service to his disciples. My experience last Thursday confirmed it.

As usual in this service, I knelt and wept as people went forward to have one of our deacons or seminarians wash their feet. A lovely man who I'd not yet met turned around twice to ask if I was all right, apparently unused to the sounds of sobs in church. The bent backs and bowed heads of these servants of Christ were heart rending.

I wondered who God had in mind for me, and eventually went up to one who washed us for the first time this year. I sat before him, the sobs rising in intensity as he lifted my foot.

And I still can't believe what he did.

I've participated in these services for 5 or 6 years and each time the men have been unfailingly reverent and tender, clearly acting in the person of Christ. Each one kept his face turned down so that we can better imagine He who first washed us.

I think that the Holy Spirit whispered to this man for me.

He took my naked, humble foot, no thing of beauty, and lavished it with love the same way I imagine Mary caressing Christ. It was an act of profound intimacy which I cannot possibly describe.

I was undone.

I am trying to figure out how to thank him for his obedience to the Spirit's prompting to give me this gift.

The generosity of our Lord...

George MacDonald on the Passions

From Phantastes:

"The hot fever of life had gone by, and I breathed the clear mountain-air of the land of Death. I had never dreamed of such blessedness. It was not that I had in any way ceased to be what I had been. The very fact that anything can die, implies the existence of something that cannot die; which must either take to itself another form, as when the seed that is sown dies, and arises again; or, in conscious existence, may, perhaps, continue to lead a purely spiritual life. If my passions were dead, the souls of the passions, those essential mysteries of the spirit which had imbodied themselves in the passions, and had given to them all their glory and wonderment, yet lived, yet glowed, with a pure, undying fire. They rose above their vanishing earthly garments, and disclosed themselves angels of light."

George MacDonald on Dying of Desire (II)

From Phantastes:

"He could not come near her, could not speak to her, could not hear a sound from those sweet lips, to which his longing eyes would cling like bees to their honey-founts. Ever and anon he sang to himself: "I shall die for love of the maiden;" and ever he looked again, and died not, though his heart seemed ready to break with intensity of life and longing. And the more he did for her, the more he loved her; and he hoped that, although she never appeared to see him, yet she was pleased to think that one unknown would give his life to her. He tried to comfort himself over his separation from her, by thinking that perhaps some day she would see him and make signs to him, and that would satisfy him; "for," thought he, "is not this all that a loving soul can do to enter into communion with another? Nay, how many who love never come nearer than to behold each other as in a mirror; seem to know and yet never know the inward life; never enter the other soul; and part at last, with but the vaguest notion of the universe on the borders of which they have been hovering for years?"

Wormicide

It was raining the other day, and as I left work and walked across the vast parking lot I watched a worm squirm his way through a puddle. The sight of this gets me every time, and I bent to try to rescue him. He was slippery and annoyed by my "help", energetically resisting my efforts. I eventually did grab him, hoping I didn't hurt him in the process, and walked him over to a landscaped area which offered some dirt.

I felt both virtuous and victorious.

For roughly 13 seconds.

Then I saw another worm, this time already dead.

Then another.

Then another.

And a sense of futility rolled over me; the parking lot was too big. I was surrounded by other parking lots. The city was full of parking lots and driveways and other surfaces all covered with suicidal worms awaiting destruction.

I couldn't possibly save them.

That's when the anger hit; what the heck is wrong with worms that they end up drowning on asphalt?

Where do they all come from?

Why do I feel guilty about them?

And then, as if in a Hallmark card commercial, silent violins began to play and I thought of birds.

Birds were the answer; every rainstorm is a gift to the birds.

And I felt better.

Easter is coming. Alleluia.

George MacDonald on Dying of Desire

From Phantastes:

"She was found, the next morning, dead beneath a withered tree on a bare hill-side, some miles inland. They buried her where she lay, as is their custom; for, before they die, they instinctively search for a spot like the place of their birth, and having found one that satisfies them, they lie down, fold their wings around them, if they be women, or cross their arms over their breasts, if they are men, just as if they were going to sleep; and so sleep indeed. The sign or cause of coming death is an indescribable longing for something, they know not what, which seizes them, and drives them into solitude, consuming them within, till the body fails. When a youth and a maiden look too deep into each other's eyes, this longing seizes and possesses them; but instead of drawing nearer to each other, they wander away, each alone, into solitary places, and die of their desire."

Foot washing revisited

Here's an article I wrote a few years ago on what is for me one of the most heart-wrenching services. Should have thought to reference it earlier in the day...

Instilling Humility: Maundy Thursday Foot Washing

SquirrelTree

If not a dog named me
perhaps I can be
a creature near your window
perched in a tree
pretending not to notice
when you watch
and hoping you will join me
in the warmth of my nest.

--Chantelle Franc

Imaginatio divina

At my beloved priest's invitation, for a few weeks I have been practicing what I am calling imagiplation or imaginatio divina; the use of the imagination for experiencing God.

It has been an amazing adventure, one which I need to document in greater detail in future. For now I'll limit myself to telling you about His gift to me this morning.

I approach Him in a particular setting which He created for me, and I climb into His lap. Normally I cuddle in like a child. This morning however, I turned my face up to Him as a woman, not a child. He bent His head to meet me and we kissed a kiss of lovers at rest. And as we kissed, He began to blow His breath into me.

I entered His presence heavy of heart and mind. I left at peace and in wonder.

He is so very generous...

George MacDonald on Reflections

From Phantastes:

"Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality? — not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? ... All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass. ... In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one thing we may be sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But how have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I only float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land! The moon, which is the lovelier memory or reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirror of the brooding night, had rapt me away."

St. Ambrose on Psalms

What is more pleasing than a psalm? A psalm is a blessing on the lips of the people, praise of God, the assembly's homage, a general acclamation, a word that speaks for all, the voice of the Church, a confession of faith in song.

-- Ambrose

Rehearsing goodby

I rehearse your goodbye
in my dreams
the one that moves you away
to lands unknown
and sporadic hollowness
becomes forever.

George MacDonald on Truth, Joy and Sorrow

From Phantastes:

"From this I was partly aroused by a glimmering of white, that, through the trees on the left, vaguely crossed my vision, as I gazed upwards. But the trees again hid the object; and at the moment, some strange melodious bird took up its song, and sang, not an ordinary bird-song, with constant repetitions of the same melody, but what sounded like a continuous strain, in which one thought was expressed, deepening in intensity as evolved in progress. It sounded like a welcome already overshadowed with the coming farewell. As in all sweetest music, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy. Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may not enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love."

George MacDonald on Self-destructive beauty

This one reminds me of an old me.

From Phantastes by George MacDonald:

"...I am sure she would not look so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautiful than she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her before you saw her beauty, mistaking her for the lady of the marble--another kind altogether, I should think. But the chief thing that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man, and when she finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely--with a self-destructive beauty, though; for it is that which is constantly wearing her away within, till, at last, the decay will reach her face, and her whole front, when all the lovely mask of nothing will fall to pieces, and she be vanished for ever."

Dazzling truth

The truth dazzles gradually, or else the world would be blind.

-- Emily Dickinson

Man's best friend

I wish you had a dog named me
so that I could wait at home
and unleash my glee at seeing you
in a frenzied lashing of my tail
and you would stoop
to let me lick your face.

--Chantelle Franc

Screwtape on Christ and pleasure (II)

From The Screwtape Letters:

I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula.

--C.S. Lewis

Screwtape on Christ and pleasure

From The Screwtape Letters, referring to Christ:

He’s a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the seashore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are ‘pleasures for evermore’. Ugh! I don’t think he has the least inkling of that high and austere mystery to which we rise in the Miserific Vision. He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He has filled His world full of pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least — sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us. We fight under the cruel disadvantages. Nothing is naturally on our side.

--C.S. Lewis

St. Ignatius on souls wide open

From Letter of 18 July 1536:

"It happens sometimes that the Lord himself moves our souls and forces us, as it were, to this or that particular action by laying our souls wide open. This means that he begins to speak in the very depths of our being, without any clamour of words, he enraptures the soul completely into his love and bestows upon us an awareness of himself so that, even if we wished, we should be unable to resist."

--St. Ignatius

on "Twighlight"

I have not read nor seen the movie "Twilight", nor have I wanted to until reading the post below, which I stumbled upon a few minutes ago:

http://beautifulinexactly.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/ill-take-an-order-of-that-please-extra-hot/

Now I guess I'll have to.

Pernicious schizophrenia

From: Ignatius the Theologian, Ch. 5 "The application of the Senses"

"A Christian person, in the full sense of what Ignatius was aiming at in the Spiritual Exercises, is one who has overcome the pernicious schizophrenia between soul and body, brain and heart, and thus become fully reintegrated--one who by means of prayer and assimilation to the incarnate Word has put right the 'ill-ordered attachments' of his soul and 'set his life in order'."

--Hugo Rahner, SJ

Pope-Tube!

http://www.youtube.com/user/vatican

Inexpressible

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

-- Aldous Huxley

on the spiritual senses

"The spiritual senses are the effect of the three theological virtues. From constancy of faith comes the power to hear. From insight into faith comes the power of vision. From hope comes the power to smell. From union in love comes the power to touch. From the enjoyment of love comes the power to taste. This activation of the spiritual senses helps us receive ever greater graces. The helps of grace which Jesus Christ our Lord gives to those whom he loves. He who possesses them will know what this means."

--Jerome Nadal

Spiritual senses

Polanco was a disciple of Ignatius, and this is commentary from St. Ignatius' Application of the Senses:

Through it's longing for Christ, whom it desires to breathe in as the Word inviting us to the enjoyment of full union, it receives a spiritual sense of smell, so that it may walk in the fragrance of Christ's ointments: and thus Christ is its life. And finally, through the love which binds it to Christ the incarnate Word, it receives straight from him, even during this earthly pilgrimage, a sense of taste which enables it to taste how sweet the Lord is. And by embracing him in that pure love which transforms its very being, it receives a spiritual sense of touch."

A hand not empty

It is amazing that an empty hand, stretched toward you, can contain so much comfort.

St. Bonaventure on inward senses

"And once they are attained the soul beholds Christ, hears him, becomes aware of him through his pleasant fragrance, savours him and embraces him. But this can be grasped only by him who receives this grace of prayer for this is less a matter of intellectual consideration than of loving experience. Thus at this stage of prayer the soul has now won back the interior senses, so that it may behold the supreme beauty, hear the supreme harmony, breathe in the supreme frangrance, savour the supreme sweeness and touch the supreme delight.""

(Itinerarium mentis in Deum cf. 4)

St. Augustine inflamed

"I have learnt to love you late, Beauty at once so ancient and so new! I have learnt to love you late! You were within me, and I was in the world outside myself. I searched for you outside myself and, disfigured as I was, I fell upon the lovely things of your creation. You were with me, but I was not with you. The beautiful things of this world kept me far from you and yet, if they had not been in you, they would have had no being at all. You called me; you cried aloud to me; you broke my barrier of deafness. You shone upon me; your radiance enveloped me; you put my blindness to flight; you shed your fragrance about me; I drew breath and now I grasp your sweet odour, I tasted you, and now I hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am inflamed with love of your peace."

(Confessions, X, 27)

St. Augustine on clinging to God's embrace

"But what do I love when I love my God? Not material beauty or beauty of a temporal order; not the brilliance of earthly light, so welcome to our eyes; not the sweet melody of harmony and song; not the fragrance of flowers, perfumes, and spices; not manna or honey; not limbs such as the body delights to embrace. It is not these that I love when I love my God. And yet, when I love him, it is true that I love a light of a certain kind, a voice, a perfume, a food, an embrace; but they are of the kind that I love in my inner self, when my soul is bathed in light that is not bound by space; when it listens to sound that never dies away; when it breathes fragrance that is not borne away on the wind; when it tastes food that is never consumed by the eating; when it clings to an embrace from which it is not severed by fulfillment of desire. This is what I love when I love my God."

(Confessions, X, 6)

Intimate kisses

Isn't it strange that after Mary's lovemaking of Jesus' feet, the second most intimate act initiated by man in the Gospels was Judas' kiss?

on reunion with the beloved

I've been reading a variety of classic and newer fantasy fiction as a form of enjoyable research re. the concept of sanctified imagination.

The most current read is the 3rd in Christopher Paolini's Eragon series (titled Brisingr), at the center of which is the relationship between dragon (Saphira) and rider (Eragon). The following is a passage describing a reunion between these two:

"Redoubling his speed, Eragon opened his mind to Saphira, removing every barrier around who he was, so that they might join together without reservation. Like a flood of warm water, her consciousness rushed into him, even as his rushed into her. Eragon gasped and tripped and nearly fell. They enveloped each other within the folds of their thoughts, holding each other with an intimacy no physical embrace could replicate, allowing their identities to merge once again. Their greatest comfort was a simple one: they were no longer alone. To know that you were with one who cared for you, and who understood every fiber of your being, and who would not abandon you in even the most desperate of circumstances, that was the most precious relationship a person could have, and both Eragon and Saphira cherished it."

on becoming

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

-- Epictetus

Our desire for the beautiful

This is a quote which was included in an article I recently linked, but important enough that I thought is should also stand alone.

From The Life of Moses:

And so every desire for the Beautiful which draws us on in this ascent is intensified by the soul’s very progress towards it. And this is the real meaning of seeing God: never to have this desire satisfied. But fixing our eyes on those things which help us to see, we must ever keep alive in us the desire to see more and more. And so no limit can be set to our progress towards God: first of all, because no limitation can be put on upon the Beautiful, and secondly because the increase in our desire for the Beautiful cannot be stopped by any sense of satisfaction.

--St. Gregory of Nyssa

The feet of the master

He whispered more to me about Mary's act of love and my yearning to stand in her place.

He whispered that I could give this gift to Him through my husband.

Lord make me obedient.

Model for Holy Thursday?

As I stood in prayer before the tabernacle last night, my hands on either side of my face, feeling the texture of the carving, I wanted only to be pressed up against Him directly.

My mind went again to the sinful women who came to the house of the leper in order to bathe Jesus' feet with her tears. The Gospels speak of no other person having such intimate contact with Him.

I so identify with this woman, this sinful one, this sensualist. I wonder if her sensuality, like David's, gave her special entree to God's heart. Does He especially love those who incarnate love, albeit rashly?

As I prayed, I wondered.

I wondered if it is possible for we created ones to give God Himself ideas for expressing love. Jesus accepted her lavishing and praised it, then went on to wash the feet of His twelve.

Could she have been the inspiration?

Was she the model He followed?

A gift of caretaking

Thank you Lord for your priests.

I am so blessed by the Father you have sent my congregation. Yesterday, when he knew that I would be coming to spend time in the sanctuary in grief and supplication, he prepared it for me. He lit candles, incensed it with the prayers of the saints, and filled it with Vivaldi's violins singing the seasons.

Our tabernacle is set in the wall behind the altar, fronted with a wooden door that is carved and gilded with chalice and host. I spent an hour immediately before it, my face pressed against the wood as the tears flowed.

The sorrowful mysteries brought great peace, as did a MacDonald passage he later read to me.

I left better prepared.

It was a great gift to have such care taken over me.

A great gift.

Bread and wine? Milk and honey?

I want to taste you Lord.

Ahh, Lent (II)

Scripture tells us that the Father disciplines those He loves.

I am apparently very much loved, indeed.

Becoming a dewdrop

I've stolen this lovely phrase from my friend Pranayama mama's recent post:

"I want to become like a dewdrop that reflects the entire moon."

On the journey of desire

Here is a lovely article on my favorite topic:

http://marshmk.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/feast-of-st-gregory-of-nyssa/

Give me wisdom

Ah Lent...

It appears that this year's Lenten torture may be revelation about the ways in which I make a poor wife. The completion of which rests on my shoulders to seek out.

To say that I am not looking forward to it is an understatement.

However, this morning's devotional reading delivered Jeremiah 1:11-19, with commentary that included:

"If God reveals something to you, ask for his wisdom to know how to deliver the message. Be assured of his strong protection as you go on his errand."

And so I am in prayer, asking for His wisdom, and thanking Him for His protection.

Filled to silence

Sometimes I am so full of words that the only possible response to you is silence.

More on sex

Stripping sexuality of it's sacredness and treating it as recreation is like using a Maserati for offroading.

Question du jour: on Gluttony

Is it gluttonous to desire more time with one you love than what you get?

My mission field

After catechizing yesterday in my women's group on the sacraments of baptism and confession, it occurred to me that I need to better prepare my answer to the inevitable question:

"So why aren't you Roman Catholic?"

Luckily the answer came while making dinner last night: my current church is my mission field.

From within it I am helping repair the reformation rift, by equipping others to restore the beauty of the sacraments to the church from which they have been stolen.

It is a good answer. I am content.

After His heart

I've been thinking more about my sanctimonious twerpishness, and affirmed that it is indeed true.

I'm an obnoxious little teacher's pet who I would imagine is easy to hate.

In the face of this reality, it is a comfort to remember that He told me I am David, and like David, I am after God's heart.

I am -after- it.

I am filled with zeal for my Father's house. His teaching is my delight.

And I pray that my striving is pleasing to Him who I do so hope to please.

Ahh, the Lenten discovery continues...

I made an ugly discovery today.

Turns out I'm an obnoxiously sanctimonious little twerp.

(Except I'd substitute another word for twerp. And I'm not that little.)

Passionate encounter

This morning God talked to me about the kind of love affair he wants me to have with him. He wanted me to know that it should be passionate.

I thought whine-ily, in response:

"But I've never encountered you physically".

To which he replied:

"Oh, you haven't?"

Becoming like Him

The steady discipline of intimate friendship with Jesus results in men becoming like Him.

-- H. E. Fosdick

Construction vs Creation

“The whole difference between a construction and a creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.”

--G.K. Chesterton

Welcome home

Ahh, the deep comfort of saying "Welcome home".

Tales more beautiful and amazing

"It involves us in all kinds of difficulties in which human ingenuity, unable to discover or imagine a way out, realizes its own feebleness and finds itself at a loss and confounded. It is then that God's purpose is manifest in all its radiance, rescuing souls more miraculously than any writer of fantastic tales, who, straining every effort of his imagination in the seclusion of his study, unravels the intrigues and perils of his imaginary heroes and always brings their adventures to a happy conclusion. It leads souls far more ingeniously past mortal perils, past monster, hell-fire, demons and their snares and carries them up to heaven. All are the subject of mystical tales far more beautiful and amazing than any invented by the crude imagination of mortal man."

page 24 of "The Sacrament of the Present Moment" by Jean Pierre de Caussade

The road to contentment

If I had a car
and pulled up next to you
would you hop in
and let me drive
God knows where?
I wouldn't care
as long as you were with me
the open road
promising miles of you
and quiet contentment.

On prayer for the dead

A formerly Baptist friend asked me about the Catholic practice of praying for the dead. I passed along some info on this ancient Jewish and Christian practice, but concluded with the following, describing the concept of being saved as by fire as St. Paul educates us.

I have a vision of this state of purification as being in his presence but at a distance because the heat and light are too great. And as my attachment to sin is burned away I am able to move closer and closer and closer until I can stand before him, face to face. That process of purgation, of being saved as by fire, is a stage of heaven, one of the rooms in his mansion. The heat of his light and love are the fire which purifies. And the pain of the purification process is the pain of the distance which remains, until that distance is no more.

I just adore the concept of purgatory; it is so very beautiful.

Question du jour

Are we, also, begotten not made?

Crazy with Desire

I need to look at more Sufi poetry:

Tonight I am crazy,
crazy with desire for You.
This impassioned heart of mine
overflows with longing for You

http://ryanbeggar.blogspot.com/2009/02/sufi-poems-four.html

Sureal-ity

One day in December I cried so much that the skin on my face changed, permanently.

Perversion of the magnificent

While driving into the city today I went past a large billboard right next to the inner loop. As usual, it displayed an ad for our area's most prosperous porn shop. As porn shop ads go, these are usually pretty tame. This time it said something about going red for valentines day, with a picture of a provocative red head.

And I thought to myself "ewww."

Then I wondered, why "ewww"?

And I realized that we -should- react to pornography the way we react to a plate full of rotten meat, crawling with maggots. Pornography takes something which is whole and beautiful and full of God's grace, and twists it and destroys it and turns it into something prurient.

Pornography perverts the magnificent.

Ewww indeed.

Love transcends human sense and reason

Love transcends all the human Sense and Reason can reach to.

-- Jacob Boehme

How to read a love letter

A friend forwarded this to me today, from some sort of devotional email list. It connects to a discussion in my women's group this morning.

When your words came, I ate them;
They were my joy and my heart's delight,
For I bear your name, O Lord God Almighty.
Jeremiah 15:16

"Mortimer J. Adler in his classic How to Read A Book makes this insightful observation. "The one time people read for all they are worth is when they are in love and are reading a letter from their beloved." Adler goes on to say that folks read love letters by analyzing every word. They even read between the lines and the margins. The whole is read in terms of the parts, and each part in terms of the whole. The reader becomes sensitive to context and ambiguity, to insinuation and implication. When reading a love letter there is an acute awareness of the color of the words, the order of phrases, and the weight of sentences. Punctuation is taken into account and the imagination is aroused. If never before, or after, each precious word of the letter is read carefully and in depth.

Drawing on Adler's comments, the New York Times published a review for How to Read A Book under the heading, "How to Read a Love Letter." The reviewer noted that when we read a letter from our beloved, it is read so thoroughly and with so many questions, that soon the reader can quote the content by heart. And, in fact, does so—to him- or herself—for weeks to come. The review ended with the conclusion that if people read books with anything approaching the same concentration and zeal, we'd be a race of mental giants!

Using Adler's words and the New York Times review, ponder for a moment what would happen if we read the Bible—God's perpetual love letter to His beloved—with the same zeal! We would indeed be a race of "spiritual giants," mature in our faith and able to withstand the wiles of the enemy. With God's Word hidden in our hearts and echoing in our mind, there would be no room left for Satan to inject doubts and fears! Answers to life's questions and perplexities would come easily. Our prayers would be powerful and effective. All of nature would become our classroom. We would walk in harmony with God and enjoy the intimate fellowship with Him for which we were created.

Now ask yourself another question: when was the last time you read the Bible as if it were a precious love letter? When reading Scripture do you hang on every word and read between the lines and margins? Have you seen the whole in terms of the parts and the parts in terms of the whole? Do the words take on colors and arouse your imagination? Or is Scripture reading just another obligation you must fulfill before you go about the busyness of your life, unaffected by the precious words you gulped down rather than savored and allowed to permeate every fiber of your being? Jeremiah tells us that God's words are to be our joy and our heart's delight.

Today I invite you to read God's word with the heart of a lover. Learn to delight in your beloved because He delights in you and invites you to enjoy Him forever."

Chesterton on religion

"Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."

--Gilbert K. Chesterton

Sole Deep

In a moment of magic I was with you.
You were in me, and I surrounded you.
Music played and we danced
as if time were a fiction.
Now I am empty, and waiting
carried from place to place
in hope that the right door will be opened
and you will be there
to step into me; sole-deep
companion of my heart.

--Chantelle Franc

Poetry for Valentines Day (I)

Longing

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me.

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth.
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say My love! why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again.
For then the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

--by Matthew Arnold (1822-1888)

Poetry for Valentines Day (II)

Love's Philosophy

The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever,
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle;--
Why not I with thine?

See! the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven,
If it disdained it's brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley

Planes

I didn't want to hear about a plane crash today.

The first duty of love

The first duty of love is to listen.

-- Paul Tillich

Chesterton on absurd happiness

Jesus promised his disciples three things - that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy and in constant trouble.

-- G. K. Chesterton

The Broken Heart

He is stark mad, whoever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love's hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

If 'twere not so, what did become
Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me; but Love, alas!
At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.

--John Donne

Love beyond this life

The rationalist lusts after sexual power, but the heavenly lover loves beyond this life for his beloved.

--Fr. Robert Dalgleish

Hunger

I hunger for you.

Dazzling, radiant, pulsating

From Beyond Smells and Bells by Mark Galli:

"I believe--and it has been my experience--that ongoing participation in the liturgy is ongoing participation in the life of God, and, as such, will lead, as C.S. Lewis envisions human transformation, to a life 'dazzling, radiant... pulsating all through with... energy, joy, and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine.'"

Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

--John Donne

Thirst for happiness and meaning

There is within every soul a thirst for happiness and meaning.

-- Thomas Aquinas

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)