Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland Nov. 29, 1893. He was educated through private tutors until he was ten and then bounced around various schools, finding most of them to be horrid environments. At fifteen he went to study under another private tutor and became an atheist.
Lewis won a scholarship to Oxford and then volunteered in WWI, returning to Oxford after the war.
At 33, following a discussion with JRR Tolkein, Lewis returned to the Christian faith of his youth, influenced also by the writer G.K. Chesterton.
During WWII, Lewis did a number of popular radio shows called "Mere Christianity" in which he explained the faith in simple terms with vivid illustrations. Later these were edited and compiled into a book of the same name.
Lewis eventually married the American Joy Gresham late in his life. He had corresponded with Joy and eventually she moved to England. She was the divorced (due to alcoholism and physical abuse) wife of American novelist William Gresham. Lewis' brother Warnie said that Joy was the only woman Lewis had met who was his intellectual equal (they played Scrabble together simultaneously in English, French, Greek and Latin). They were first married in a civil ceremony so that Joy could stay in England and later, on her deathbed when she was dying from bone cancer they were married in a religious ceremony. This had taken some doing because at the time, the marriage would have been prevented by Joy's divorce. Joy miraculously recovered, however, and she and Lewis had a few more months more together, taking a holiday in Greece, before the cancer came back and she died.
Lewis died a few years later on November 22, 1963, the same day as JFK and Aldous Huxley.
Further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._S._Lewis
Surprised by Joy - Lewis' autobiography of his youth and conversion
A Grief Observed - Lewis working through the death of Joy
The Narnian - Alan Jacobs' excellent biography of C.S. Lewis
If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments.
Matthew Popkes
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Contented Worldliness
Is this contented worldliness?
God has been good to me. Of coure I've had to work hard for what I've got. I couldn't have done what I've done without him, but, I put a lot of effort into my job and it's paid off. I really do deserve what I've got. Yes, God has been good to me, but I think I've been good too. A
Or is this contented worldliness?
It is Sunday morning. I have three hours before Mass begins. I'm going to fry up a couple of eggs and some toast. It is a nice summer day so I think I'll eat it out on the patio. It sure will be great enjoying the summer weather, feeling the gentle breeze. What a great feeling it will be.
God has been good to me. Of coure I've had to work hard for what I've got. I couldn't have done what I've done without him, but, I put a lot of effort into my job and it's paid off. I really do deserve what I've got. Yes, God has been good to me, but I think I've been good too. A
Or is this contented worldliness?
It is Sunday morning. I have three hours before Mass begins. I'm going to fry up a couple of eggs and some toast. It is a nice summer day so I think I'll eat it out on the patio. It sure will be great enjoying the summer weather, feeling the gentle breeze. What a great feeling it will be.
Or is this contented worldliness?
Here's Willie's son in trouble again. Why does he have to be so belligerent, so angry? And Willie's daughter, why does she lack direction in her life? Doesn't she have any motivation at all to improve herself? You know, if Willie would have worked out things with his wife, if he and his wife had paid more attention to their children and less concerned with themselves maybe they wouldn't have turned out as badly as they did. My wife and I, you know, we're not perfect, but our kids turned out pretty darn good.
Prayer of Silence
What is the "prayer of silence" refered to in Letter 4? How is it practiced? This is an interesting topic to dicuss. For thsose of you who have a handle on the concept, how do you practice it?
Be still, and know that I am God
In Chapter 4 of Screwtape Letters, Screwtape mentions "the prayer of silence as practiced by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy's service." I saw some interesting reflections on the importance and meaning of silence as a key to the door leading to the Real.
In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Joseph Pieper says that Prudence is the standard of all virtues. It is every virtue's "cause, root, mother, measure, precept, guide and prototype. . ." And "[t]he standard of prudence, is the ipsa res, the "thing itself," the objective reality of being." Ch. 1, pp. 8-9.
In other words, realization of the good (in virtue) presupposes knowledge of reality, which is prudence. "He alone can do good who knows what things are like and what their situation is." Ch. 2, p.10.
How does silence figure in? Pieper goes on to say, "The attitude of 'silent' contemplation of reality is the key prerequisite for the perfection of prudence as cognition." In other words, silence is the pre-requisite for hearing the (invisible) real.
He mentions three elements in prudence, including true memory, docility, and discernment. In describing docility, he says, "Docilitas is not the 'docility' and the simple-minded zealousness of the 'good pupil.' Rather, what is meant is the kind of open-mindedness which recognizes the true variety of things and situations to be experienced and does not cage itself in any presumption of deceptive knowledge. What is meant is the ability to take advice, sprung not from any vague "modesty," but simply from the desire for real understanding . . . A closed mind and know-it-allness are fundamentally forms of resistance to the truth of real things; both reveal the incapacity of the subject to practice that silence which is the absolute prerequisite to all perception of reality." (emphasis added)
I was struck by something Emily Dickinson said in a letter to her friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson: " You ask of my Companions Hills - Sir - and the Sundown - and a Dog - large as myself, that my Father bought me - They are better than Beings - because they know - but do not tell - and the noise in the Pool, at Noon - excels my Piano." Dickinson listened to these quiet companions -- "took their advice" . . . in solitude and silence.
Screwtape, of course, wants the opposite, instructing his nephew incessantly to bruit up distractions - "noise" - to keep his patient's attention away from the Real. You see this in every chapter. E.g., Ch. 1: try to focus his attention on "the stream of immediate sense experiences." Ch. 2: keep his mind "full of" and "hazy with" incongruities between actual persons and his "ideas" of what a spiritual person should be like. Ch. 3: keep his mind on "abstractions," not the obvious. Ch. 4: foreclose prayer by not allowing him to cast aside "his thoughts and images" and trust himself completely to the completely real, external, invisible Presence - there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it." Ch. 5: focus his attention on a "contented worldliness" rather than on "values and causes" which are higher than himself. Ch. 6: push virtue into fantasy and vice into actuality. Ch. 7: encourage extremes, faction, "uneasy intensity and defensive self-righteousness." Etc.
Hence the remedy: Be still, and know that I am God. Psalms 46:10
In Chapter 4 of Screwtape Letters, Screwtape mentions "the prayer of silence as practiced by those who are very far advanced in the Enemy's service." I saw some interesting reflections on the importance and meaning of silence as a key to the door leading to the Real.
In The Four Cardinal Virtues, Joseph Pieper says that Prudence is the standard of all virtues. It is every virtue's "cause, root, mother, measure, precept, guide and prototype. . ." And "[t]he standard of prudence, is the ipsa res, the "thing itself," the objective reality of being." Ch. 1, pp. 8-9.
In other words, realization of the good (in virtue) presupposes knowledge of reality, which is prudence. "He alone can do good who knows what things are like and what their situation is." Ch. 2, p.10.
How does silence figure in? Pieper goes on to say, "The attitude of 'silent' contemplation of reality is the key prerequisite for the perfection of prudence as cognition." In other words, silence is the pre-requisite for hearing the (invisible) real.
He mentions three elements in prudence, including true memory, docility, and discernment. In describing docility, he says, "Docilitas is not the 'docility' and the simple-minded zealousness of the 'good pupil.' Rather, what is meant is the kind of open-mindedness which recognizes the true variety of things and situations to be experienced and does not cage itself in any presumption of deceptive knowledge. What is meant is the ability to take advice, sprung not from any vague "modesty," but simply from the desire for real understanding . . . A closed mind and know-it-allness are fundamentally forms of resistance to the truth of real things; both reveal the incapacity of the subject to practice that silence which is the absolute prerequisite to all perception of reality." (emphasis added)
I was struck by something Emily Dickinson said in a letter to her friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson: " You ask of my Companions Hills - Sir - and the Sundown - and a Dog - large as myself, that my Father bought me - They are better than Beings - because they know - but do not tell - and the noise in the Pool, at Noon - excels my Piano." Dickinson listened to these quiet companions -- "took their advice" . . . in solitude and silence.
Screwtape, of course, wants the opposite, instructing his nephew incessantly to bruit up distractions - "noise" - to keep his patient's attention away from the Real. You see this in every chapter. E.g., Ch. 1: try to focus his attention on "the stream of immediate sense experiences." Ch. 2: keep his mind "full of" and "hazy with" incongruities between actual persons and his "ideas" of what a spiritual person should be like. Ch. 3: keep his mind on "abstractions," not the obvious. Ch. 4: foreclose prayer by not allowing him to cast aside "his thoughts and images" and trust himself completely to the completely real, external, invisible Presence - there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it." Ch. 5: focus his attention on a "contented worldliness" rather than on "values and causes" which are higher than himself. Ch. 6: push virtue into fantasy and vice into actuality. Ch. 7: encourage extremes, faction, "uneasy intensity and defensive self-righteousness." Etc.
Hence the remedy: Be still, and know that I am God. Psalms 46:10
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Habit as a Rolling Snowball
In chapter 13 of Screwtape Letters, Screwtape bemoans the fact that his nephew allowed his patient to "read a good book" and take a "walk through country he really likes. . . two real positive Pleasures." Screwtape goes on to advise trying to prevent his patient from acting on his "piety". He wants him to keep piety in his imagination and affection only, and not in his will and action. Screwtape states: "As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel."
I wondered what human said that, so went to my trusty research tool, Google, and found the following. This "law of habit" was first stated by Bishop Butler, an English churchman in the mid-1800's, in his book The Analogy of Religion.
The law of habit is that habitual actions develop by repetition, and then tend to repeat themselves. The same is true of non-actions (passive actions). By indulging in repeated experiences of feeling without a follow-on action, a habit of not acting develops. In fact, said Butler, the feeling itself is less felt.
An example: "Two men hear the same loud bell in the morning; it calls the one to work, as he is accustomed to listen to it, and so it always wakes him; the other has to rise an hour later, he is accustomed to disregard it, and so it soon ceases to have any effect upon him. The same principle of habit has produced in these two cases exactly opposite results." See Charles H. Smith's book review of Habit and Intelligence.
Another example. In the Burnett Lectures by William Davidson (1892-93), Davidson explained: "the more we give ourselves over to mere feeling, the less disposed to action we grow; whereas the more we accustom ourselves to act on emotion, the more does our ability to act increase, and inversely. The sick-nurse and the doctor may be taken as examples. Repeated experience of suffering does, no doubt, to some extent blunt the acuteness of their sensibility to distress; but then there comes, instead of it, the active habit of relieving, the prompt response in practical assistance, the instinctive rising up to help."
It makes me appreciate that I need to act on my appropriate feelings, not just indulge my emotion. Ergo, my resolution: I will finish my Christmas cards before the end of January! I will finish my Christmas cards before the end of January!
In chapter 13 of Screwtape Letters, Screwtape bemoans the fact that his nephew allowed his patient to "read a good book" and take a "walk through country he really likes. . . two real positive Pleasures." Screwtape goes on to advise trying to prevent his patient from acting on his "piety". He wants him to keep piety in his imagination and affection only, and not in his will and action. Screwtape states: "As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel."
I wondered what human said that, so went to my trusty research tool, Google, and found the following. This "law of habit" was first stated by Bishop Butler, an English churchman in the mid-1800's, in his book The Analogy of Religion.
The law of habit is that habitual actions develop by repetition, and then tend to repeat themselves. The same is true of non-actions (passive actions). By indulging in repeated experiences of feeling without a follow-on action, a habit of not acting develops. In fact, said Butler, the feeling itself is less felt.
An example: "Two men hear the same loud bell in the morning; it calls the one to work, as he is accustomed to listen to it, and so it always wakes him; the other has to rise an hour later, he is accustomed to disregard it, and so it soon ceases to have any effect upon him. The same principle of habit has produced in these two cases exactly opposite results." See Charles H. Smith's book review of Habit and Intelligence.
Another example. In the Burnett Lectures by William Davidson (1892-93), Davidson explained: "the more we give ourselves over to mere feeling, the less disposed to action we grow; whereas the more we accustom ourselves to act on emotion, the more does our ability to act increase, and inversely. The sick-nurse and the doctor may be taken as examples. Repeated experience of suffering does, no doubt, to some extent blunt the acuteness of their sensibility to distress; but then there comes, instead of it, the active habit of relieving, the prompt response in practical assistance, the instinctive rising up to help."
It makes me appreciate that I need to act on my appropriate feelings, not just indulge my emotion. Ergo, my resolution: I will finish my Christmas cards before the end of January! I will finish my Christmas cards before the end of January!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Here's Laughing With You!
In Chapter 11 of Screwtape Letters, Screwtape discusses humor, from joy to fun to jokes to flippancy. As to joy and fun, Screwtape thinks it generally promotes "wholly undesirable tendencies" including "charity, courage, contentment and many other evils." He especially likes flippancy which "deadens, instead of sharpening the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it."
I offer this about Abraham Lincoln and his use of humor: "[Lincoln's humor] was much more than merely an attractive or entertaining feature of his style. Better than any American politician before or since, Lincoln understood humor as a form of communication that forges a partnership between speaker and hearer in which the former initiates the joke until the latter "get's it" and thereby closes the circle. He understood how a joke establishes intimacy through a feeling of confidential sharing that breaks down the heirarchy of the speaker/hearer relation." (From Andrew Delbanco, "Lincoln's Sacramental Language," p 209, in Our Lincoln, ed. by Eric Foner). In other words, humor can be a form of charity, a way to reach out to the Other in frienship. Let's try to "laugh with" someone today!
In Chapter 11 of Screwtape Letters, Screwtape discusses humor, from joy to fun to jokes to flippancy. As to joy and fun, Screwtape thinks it generally promotes "wholly undesirable tendencies" including "charity, courage, contentment and many other evils." He especially likes flippancy which "deadens, instead of sharpening the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it."
I offer this about Abraham Lincoln and his use of humor: "[Lincoln's humor] was much more than merely an attractive or entertaining feature of his style. Better than any American politician before or since, Lincoln understood humor as a form of communication that forges a partnership between speaker and hearer in which the former initiates the joke until the latter "get's it" and thereby closes the circle. He understood how a joke establishes intimacy through a feeling of confidential sharing that breaks down the heirarchy of the speaker/hearer relation." (From Andrew Delbanco, "Lincoln's Sacramental Language," p 209, in Our Lincoln, ed. by Eric Foner). In other words, humor can be a form of charity, a way to reach out to the Other in frienship. Let's try to "laugh with" someone today!
Monday, January 26, 2009
What happened on the road to Damascus?
Paul's "conversion." But what seized and "turned" him? A bright light and a voice he did not recognize caused him to fall to the ground. The voice identified itself, "I am Jesus, whom you have persecuted." On his back on the ground, shocked to the core, he realized: Christ lives! The impossibility the impertinent little sect "the Way" proclaimed: That the crucified Jesus is raised from the dead -- is true!!
And what the Resurrection means, which Paul proclaimed ever afterward, is that through Christ, because of Christ, we can vanquish death. This is what the Gospels, the Good News, come down to. ("If the dead do not resurrect, Christ is not resurrected either. And if Christ is not resurrected, your faith is in vain." Cor.I.15.16) (See Alain Badiou, St Paul, The Foundation of Universalism, p. 45.)
Paul's "conversion." But what seized and "turned" him? A bright light and a voice he did not recognize caused him to fall to the ground. The voice identified itself, "I am Jesus, whom you have persecuted." On his back on the ground, shocked to the core, he realized: Christ lives! The impossibility the impertinent little sect "the Way" proclaimed: That the crucified Jesus is raised from the dead -- is true!!
And what the Resurrection means, which Paul proclaimed ever afterward, is that through Christ, because of Christ, we can vanquish death. This is what the Gospels, the Good News, come down to. ("If the dead do not resurrect, Christ is not resurrected either. And if Christ is not resurrected, your faith is in vain." Cor.I.15.16) (See Alain Badiou, St Paul, The Foundation of Universalism, p. 45.)
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Some Feedback Please
Give me some feedback on this idea. Good, bad, indifferent? Will you read it? You do not need to register to read it. Will you post to it? If you do not intend to post because you don't want to register send me an email with your thoughts about the blog. We can also talk about it at our next meeting.
Sorry for all this non-spiritual stuff.
Sorry for all this non-spiritual stuff.
How Do I Post a message?
I know the difficulty I experienced when I tried to figure out how to post to this blog. So I am providing these instructions. For those of you who are not as technically challenged, as I am you can ignore this posting.
Only members of the group are allowed to post an article. If you receive emails from me then you are listed as an author and can post articles. In order to post you must register on the blog as well. The blog address is www.stmichaelsspirit.blogspot.com.
1.Once at the site, in the upper left corner is a B in an orange box, click on it and a screen opens up allowing you to create a screen name and a password. 2. Click on SIGN IN and the next page provides some info as well a link back to the main page of the blog. Click on the link and on the main page, at the top is a link “New Post”. Click on it and you are on your way.
Only members of the group are allowed to post an article. If you receive emails from me then you are listed as an author and can post articles. In order to post you must register on the blog as well. The blog address is www.stmichaelsspirit.blogspot.com.
1.Once at the site, in the upper left corner is a B in an orange box, click on it and a screen opens up allowing you to create a screen name and a password. 2. Click on SIGN IN and the next page provides some info as well a link back to the main page of the blog. Click on the link and on the main page, at the top is a link “New Post”. Click on it and you are on your way.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
How Redemption Works
In Matt's bible study class on Thurs nights, we are reading Paul's Letter to the Galatians, and in particular this week, his arguments why salvation is found through faith, not through the law. One of his arguments is that law convicts everyone because no one has, or can, fully conform to it. So, law only condemns; it cannot save. Only Christ who is love saves. I saw a very nice poem by George Herbert dramatizing this truth. Let me share it with you:
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin,
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd any thing.
A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayest Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayest Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
I also read that Simone Weil memorized this poem, thinking at first that she liked it for its aesthetic qualities, its beauty, but soon realizing that it had become for her a form of prayer. Four years after this experience she recounted it to Father Perrin, a Dominican monk, and said that as she recited the poem, "Christ himself came down and took possession of me." (From Human Goodness, Yi-Fu Tuan, p. 179.).
Nice thought: In beauty as in prayer we do not possess but are possessed - saved - by Love, by Christ.
In Matt's bible study class on Thurs nights, we are reading Paul's Letter to the Galatians, and in particular this week, his arguments why salvation is found through faith, not through the law. One of his arguments is that law convicts everyone because no one has, or can, fully conform to it. So, law only condemns; it cannot save. Only Christ who is love saves. I saw a very nice poem by George Herbert dramatizing this truth. Let me share it with you:
Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin,
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd any thing.
A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my deare,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, sayest Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, sayest Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
I also read that Simone Weil memorized this poem, thinking at first that she liked it for its aesthetic qualities, its beauty, but soon realizing that it had become for her a form of prayer. Four years after this experience she recounted it to Father Perrin, a Dominican monk, and said that as she recited the poem, "Christ himself came down and took possession of me." (From Human Goodness, Yi-Fu Tuan, p. 179.).
Nice thought: In beauty as in prayer we do not possess but are possessed - saved - by Love, by Christ.
Occasionally in our lives someone enters eternal life, someone we do not personally know, but whose life has touched us. Affected by this loss in some inexplicable way, often lacking an ability to explain why we feel a sense of loss, we nonetheless have this feeling in the pit of our stomach that our loss has been severe. One of my childhood memories is the time when Pope Pius XII died. I was 15 years old at the time and had no real knowledge of what he meant to the world and to his Church. Yet, I had that pit-of-the-stomach feeling.
What brings on this fit of nostalgia is the recent death of Richard John Neuhaus. I’ve been a reader of “First Things”, a magazine for which Fr. Neuhaus was editor in chief. I’m a fan of his writing style. He had a way of using sarcasm in an erudite manner. Not the way I developed a knack for sarcasm on the streets of Chicago. He also had a command of his thoughts that allowed him to pack a whole lot of meaning in a few words. I offer an example of what I mean.
The following was taken from the April 2006 issue of “First Things” and it was Fr. Neuhaus’ description of the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar.
“He went in for heavy-duty intellection that is sometimes ponderous and exhaustingly discursive, but always adorned with dazzling erudition and rewarding one's effort with scintillating insights of a frequently counterintuitive nature. One spends pleasurable hours reading Balthasar not so much in an analytical mode as in surrendering oneself to the beauty of how his mind works and its adventurous probings of theological imagination. Reading Balthasar is in large part a meditative exercise bordering on the contemplative.”
Fr. Neuhaus (as well as Gil Bailie) is responsible for my love affair with von Balthasar’s work. I will miss him.
What brings on this fit of nostalgia is the recent death of Richard John Neuhaus. I’ve been a reader of “First Things”, a magazine for which Fr. Neuhaus was editor in chief. I’m a fan of his writing style. He had a way of using sarcasm in an erudite manner. Not the way I developed a knack for sarcasm on the streets of Chicago. He also had a command of his thoughts that allowed him to pack a whole lot of meaning in a few words. I offer an example of what I mean.
The following was taken from the April 2006 issue of “First Things” and it was Fr. Neuhaus’ description of the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar.
“He went in for heavy-duty intellection that is sometimes ponderous and exhaustingly discursive, but always adorned with dazzling erudition and rewarding one's effort with scintillating insights of a frequently counterintuitive nature. One spends pleasurable hours reading Balthasar not so much in an analytical mode as in surrendering oneself to the beauty of how his mind works and its adventurous probings of theological imagination. Reading Balthasar is in large part a meditative exercise bordering on the contemplative.”
Fr. Neuhaus (as well as Gil Bailie) is responsible for my love affair with von Balthasar’s work. I will miss him.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
We are currently reading "The Screwtape Letters" written by C. S. Lewis. Our meeting on January 17 brought us to letter four. There were many side discussions regarding the devil himself; whether he was personal or not; regarding evil, whether it exists inside of mankind or whether it is an objective reality. Interesting stuff but somewhat off the topic of C. S. Lewis' purpose of the book which is, I believe, to point out our human weaknesses and rationalizations and how our devils exploit them. We'll try to stick more to the topic at the next meeting.
We'll pick up at letter five next time. The next meeting being on February 7.
We'll pick up at letter five next time. The next meeting being on February 7.
Connection Between Beauty and Obedience
Bob, thanks! I'll make a contribution right now!
I saw quoted recently Simone Weil's description of how the beauty of the world is displayed in its obedience to law. "What is more beautiful than the action of gravity on the fugitive folds of the sea waves, or on the almost eternal folds of the mountains? The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it. On the contrary, this adds to its beauty. If it altered the movement of its waves to spare a boat, it would be a creature gifted with discernment and choice and not this fluid, perfectly obedient to every external pressure. It is this perfect obedience that constitutes the sea's beauty." Waiting For God, p. 129.
Is this principle applicable to human beings, who have free will? I would suggest that human beings display the beauty appropriate to their nature through the virtues of docility, humility, and imitation of Christ (who came only "to do my Father's will"). These virtues are specific to rational beings, for all depend on openness, and obedience, to truth: docility is the willingness to be taught, humility seeing truly, and imitation (obedience) conforming oneself to the true.
In that regard, I saw in Helen Alvare's address at the Family Conference in Mexico City (Jan 14, 2009 http://www.zenit.org/article-24778?l=english) the following: "...as John Paul II pointed out in Evangelium Vitae -- there is something overtly ugly about the demand for "rights" to kill family members at their weakest points of their existence. . . ." John Paul II rightly saw ugliness in selfishness, the demand to do it "my way."
In the Henri Nouen excerpt that Bob passed out, Nouen states that "In the act of prayer, we undermine the illusion of control . . . by directing ourselves totally to [] God. . . ." (p155) ("Thy will be done...") I never before thought of prayer as a "beauty treatment." But isn't it a nice idea? "Makeover" anyone?
Bob, thanks! I'll make a contribution right now!
I saw quoted recently Simone Weil's description of how the beauty of the world is displayed in its obedience to law. "What is more beautiful than the action of gravity on the fugitive folds of the sea waves, or on the almost eternal folds of the mountains? The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it. On the contrary, this adds to its beauty. If it altered the movement of its waves to spare a boat, it would be a creature gifted with discernment and choice and not this fluid, perfectly obedient to every external pressure. It is this perfect obedience that constitutes the sea's beauty." Waiting For God, p. 129.
Is this principle applicable to human beings, who have free will? I would suggest that human beings display the beauty appropriate to their nature through the virtues of docility, humility, and imitation of Christ (who came only "to do my Father's will"). These virtues are specific to rational beings, for all depend on openness, and obedience, to truth: docility is the willingness to be taught, humility seeing truly, and imitation (obedience) conforming oneself to the true.
In that regard, I saw in Helen Alvare's address at the Family Conference in Mexico City (Jan 14, 2009 http://www.zenit.org/article-24778?l=english) the following: "...as John Paul II pointed out in Evangelium Vitae -- there is something overtly ugly about the demand for "rights" to kill family members at their weakest points of their existence. . . ." John Paul II rightly saw ugliness in selfishness, the demand to do it "my way."
In the Henri Nouen excerpt that Bob passed out, Nouen states that "In the act of prayer, we undermine the illusion of control . . . by directing ourselves totally to [] God. . . ." (p155) ("Thy will be done...") I never before thought of prayer as a "beauty treatment." But isn't it a nice idea? "Makeover" anyone?
Monday, January 19, 2009
Hello Spirit Lovers
This idea was suggested to me by Top Olp many months ago. The idea is a bit scarry because blog postings can seem to provide a degree of anonymity that they really do not possess. There is a tendency to write in postings more than was intended. Add to this an inability to perceive how a message or idea is received and we have the makings of potential misunderstandings.
So when posting to this blog please keep in mind the words in Ephesians Chapter 4, "Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things men need to hear, things that will really help them. Do nothing that will sadden the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed against the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander, and malice of every kind. In place of these, be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving, just as God has forgiven you in Christ."
So when posting to this blog please keep in mind the words in Ephesians Chapter 4, "Never let evil talk pass your lips; say only the good things men need to hear, things that will really help them. Do nothing that will sadden the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed against the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, all passion and anger, harsh words, slander, and malice of every kind. In place of these, be kind to one another, compassionate, and mutually forgiving, just as God has forgiven you in Christ."
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