Pooh wisdom (1)

'If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without you.'

-- Winnie the Pooh.

Co-existing with the void

From The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body (Chapters 2 and 3):

"Between knowledge and desire there is often an abyss. ...Certainly Christians know that they do not have a direct line to Christ. But still... "

The chapter talks about ways in which Christians try to cross over the abyss by focusing on one of 3 poles: the scriptures, the sacraments, or Christian ethics. This roughly maps to the ICCEC's concept of converging the three streams (sacramental, evangelical, and charismatic). Focusing on any one of these three brings the picture out of balance, and actually makes it harder to know God. Chauvet continues:

"Faith lives only from the space between the three poles. It is precisely this space which concretely mediates the distance between God and us, our respect for God's difference. This space is uncomfortable because it constantly maintains an emptiness. But this emptiness, which the imaginary unceasingly strives to fill, is what lets Jesus truly be the living One and respects his lordship. It is also what gives Christians room for 'play' by allowing individuals to breathe freely within the faith of the church, instead of submitting them to the uniform mold of one ideology. "

"The tension between liturgy and ethics which we have noted in Judaism is, as it were, doubled in Christianity. It is tempting to assuage the discomfort by either absorbing the liturgy in ethics ('What does Mass matter? The important thing is charity.') or ethics in the liturgy (''I'm square with God: I go to Mass every Sunday and go to confession regularly.') In both cases one becomes a 'dualist' Christian who separates the sacraments from the lived experience. However the good health of faith depends precisely on this discomfort. This is to say that the tension is not to be abolished but managed. "

The Odes of Solomon, Ode 19

7. So the Virgin became a mother with great mercies.
8. And she labored and bore the Son but without pain, because it did not occur without purpose.
9. And she did not require a midwife, because He caused her to give life.
10. She brought forth like a strong man with desire, and she bore according to the manifestation, and she acquired according to the Great Power.
11. And she loved with redemption, and guarded with kindness, and declared with grandeur.

Hallelujah.

The Odes of Solomon, Ode 14

1. As the eyes of a son upon his father, so are my eyes, O Lord, at all times towards You.
2. Because my breasts and my pleasure are with You.
3. Turn not aside Your mercies from me, O Lord; and take not Your kindness from me.
4. Stretch out to me, my Lord, at all times, Your right hand, and be to me a guide till the end according to Your will.
5. Let me be pleasing before You, because of Your glory, and because of Your name let me be saved from the Evil One.
6. And let Your gentleness, O Lord, abide with me, and the fruits of Your love.
7. Teach me the odes of Your truth, that I may produce fruits in You.
8. And open to me the harp of Your Holy Spirit, so that with every note I may praise You, O Lord.
9. And according to the multitude of Your mercies, so grant unto me, and hasten to grant our petitions.
10. For You are sufficient for all our needs.
    Hallelujah.

Background Music

Sometimes
the need to say I love you
is so strong
that it becomes the score against which
every word I speak is played

--Chantelle Franc

The church's teaching on BC

I've been feeling like a frayed chord over the past few days, and my husband commented that one thing he missed about my not using birth control pharmaceuticals was the leveling off of moods. That made me realize another reason they aren't a good idea; using them removes an opportunity for men to grow in mercy, patience, and generosity.

Shakespeare on love

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

--William Shakespeare

The Odes of Solomon, Ode 11

1. My heart was pruned and its flower appeared, then grace sprang up in it, and my heart produced fruits for the Lord.
2. For the Most High circumcised me by His Holy Spirit, then He uncovered my inward being towards Him, and filled me with His love.
3. And His circumcising became my salvation, and I ran in the Way, in His peace, in the way of truth.
4. From the beginning until the end I received His knowledge.
5. And I was established upon the rock of truth, where He had set me.
6. And speaking waters touched my lips from the fountain of the Lord generously.
7. And so I drank and became intoxicated, from the living water that does not die.
8. And my intoxication did not cause ignorance, but I abandoned vanity,
9. And turned toward the Most High, my God, and was enriched by His favors.
10. And I rejected the folly cast upon the earth, and stripped it off and cast it from me.
11. And the Lord renewed me with His garment, and possessed me by His light.
12. And from above He gave me immortal rest, and I became like the land that blossoms and rejoices in its fruits.
13. And the Lord is like the sun upon the face of the land.
14. My eyes were enlightened, and my face received the dew;
15. And my breath was refreshed by the pleasant fragrance of the Lord.
16. And He took me to His Paradise, wherein is the wealth of the Lord's pleasure.
    I beheld blooming and fruit-bearing trees,
    And self-grown was their crown.
    Their branches were sprouting and their fruits were shining.
    From an immortal land were their roots.
    And a river of gladness was irrigating them,
    And round about them in the land of eternal life.
17. Then I worshipped the Lord because of His magnificence.
18. And I said, Blessed, O Lord, are they who are planted in Your land, and who have a place in Your Paradise;
19. And who grow in the growth of Your trees, and have passed from darkness into light.
20. Behold, all Your laborers are fair, they who work good works, and turn from wickedness to your pleasantness.
21. For the pungent odor of the trees is changed in Your land,
22. And everything becomes a remnant of Yourself. Blessed are the workers of Your waters, and eternal memorials of Your faithful servants.
23. Indeed, there is much room in Your Paradise. And there is nothing in it which is barren, but everything is filled with fruit.
24. Glory be to You, O God, the delight of Paradise for ever.
    Hallelujah.

The apple and the tree

It occurred to me over the weekend that there is a connection between Solomon's sensuality and his lineage; how could he not be a lover with King David as his father?

Absence

Absence is to love what wind is to fire;
it extinguishes the small and rekindles the great

--Comte DeBussy-Rabutin

St. Augustine on throwing ourselves without fear

From Confessions, VIII:1:

"Throw yourself on him. Do not fear. He will not pull away and let you fall. Throw yourself without fear and he will receive you and heal you.

I was blushing because I kept on hearing the whispering of those vanities, and I was suspended in hesitation. And again she seemed to say: Deafen yourself to the murmuring of your members so that they may be mortified. They speak to you of delights but none like the ones the law of the lord your God tells you of."

Love and Wisdom

It is impossible to love and be wise

--Francis Bacon

The Odes of Solomon, Ode 7

1. As is the course of anger over wickedness, so is the course of joy over the Beloved; and brings in of its fruits unhindered.
2. My joy is the Lord and my course is towards Him, this path of mine is beautiful.
3. For there is a Helper for me, the Lord.

Mark of love

No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny
without leaving some mark on it forever.

-- Francois Mauriac

Awaiting a return to communion...

From Vision: The Scholarly Contributions of Mark Searle to Liturgical Renewal (pg168-169 on infant baptism):

"By baptism we have been fitted into a pattern of surrender and exaltation, of self-abandonment and deliverance, of dying and being raised. But such a pattern, far from being alien to the life of the child, is intrinsic to it. Having experienced the trauma of separation from the womb, the child is confronted with the task of learning to live as both autonomous and yet dependent, caught between the desire for communion and the need to accept separation, instinctively struggling to satisfy its own immediate needs yet learning to wait in trust for what it really needs. 'The nerve to separate,' says Fowler of the many experiences of separation and nonfulfillment in the infant's life, 'depends upon the assured return to communion.'"

Hosea 2:14-15

14 "Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
Bring her into the wilderness
And speak kindly to her.

15 "Then I will give her her vineyards from there,
And the valley of Achor as a door of hope.
And she will sing there as in the days of her youth,
As in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt.

The wisdom of Solomon

I was re-reading some of the Odes of Solomon and had a thought about him. Isn't it interesting that Solomon is held up as the Bible's exemplar of wisdom, and is also identified with the intense sensuality and romance of the Song of Songs?

What does this tell us about God's view of wisdom?

Capax Eros?

I wonder if one of the reasons God called David a man after His own heart was David's capacity for passionate love, as demonstrated by his rash pursuit of Bathsheba.

A joyful heart

A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love

--Mother Teresa

Friendship set to music

Love is friendship set to music.

--Edward Pollock