Religion Is A Romance

Religion is a romance between the soul and God.
 

All true romantics are religious. Religion itself is only a language designed for the romantic. It is the epitome of poetic license.


Religious figures, or icons, anchor me to my ideals. The Son, the Virgin and the Saints all steady me, when I would drift in sordid and uncertain moods. They call me back to what is good. They center my spirit and point me true north.

 
Like many boys, and more than a few girls, one of my favorite things to do as a child was to play a game of "catch" with my dad. Somehow, the ball connected us, even as it allowed us room to stand back. It was relaxing. We'd get into a rhythm. We'd bond. Tonight, I attempted meditation for a while. I had the experience of playing a game of catch with my Holy Father. In place of a ball, there was air; in place of hands, lungs. It was very relaxing. I think we bonded. 
 

If we would route all notions through our hearts,
how few would make it as far as our tongues?


The softest touch breaks the heart. 


The path of excess leads to the hovel of frugality.


The world made by God is magnificent, splendorous, a banquet of sense; that made by man, a grotesque carnival of broken resolutions and bloated pretense.


The soul rests like a ball inside a dish, displaced by the slightest movement. As the body moves this way and that, the soul is jostled and rolls haphazardly around inside. Sometimes it even slips out and disappears under the furniture. Then you have to get down on your knees, or prostrate yourself altogether, in order to recover it. And if you want it to rest securely in the center of the dish, you had better learn to be still.


The spirit -- I mean, the human spirit -- needs something to fight. It needs an enemy, a devil, colossus, or, at least, a gadfly in the ointment. Otherwise, it slackens, bows under its own weight, and runs off to the side. The spirit needs a dark night. The dawn must be something to win.
 

Really, we are in no position to judge who is making efforts, or what efforts are required for each person to rise above their karmic station. We may see a man tumbling down a mountainside and think to ourselves, "The man is making no upward progress, but is actually continuing to fall, -- therefore, he isn't making a sincere effort," when, in fact, the man is fiercely dragging his pick behind him as he falls, and gradually slowing his descent, in order to regain his footing and renew the climb.



Our merits mount up as far as His foothills, and win us no share of His glory. It is our weakness, our folly, and infirmity which make us worthy of His love. For the love of God to man is not a love of one equal to another, but a descending love, whose character is compassion; just as the love man bears his God is an ascending love, the nature of which is adoration, and astonishment.


One cannot oppose the order of a civilization without opposing procreation. Procreation is the ultimate act of consent; just as the refusal to procreate is the ultimate act of dissent. In bringing another fragile life into the world, one affirms the world, fate, and the order of society as it stands. One effectively throws in one's lot with the whole, and becomes complicit in the will of the culture; obligated to respect its values, and to inflict them on another impressionable soul. Only the anti-natalist is truly entitled to imagine and enact his own values; to live in the world of his ideals, and not in the world as it is.


There is no birth without death. Every mother is a murderer.
 

Drops

Milk for babes, and tears for strong men.

We cringe before the moment, and crow before eternity.

I give my Lord this moment, all else I leave to Him.

The earth is a part of you,
no less than the foot that walks upon it.
In fact, you would last longer without the foot.

Generally speaking,
the fewer words we employ,
the greater our force of expression.

I regard long speeches with suspicion.
A good point is easily and speedily made,
if only it is sincere; obfuscation takes time.

Speech is an expression of force.
We deplete ourselves of vital strength
by nothing so much as a prattling tongue.

As I read "A Short and Easy Method of Prayer" by the mystic Jeanne Guyon, the very first instruction she provides is not to be concerned with the speed and volume of our spiritual reading. Our goal, she says, is to trigger the experience of theophany by the recognition of a single phrase or word -- and, ultimately, by silence alone. We are not to read quickly, but deeply. We are to dwell over every image or idea which distinguishes itself by some feeling of poignancy. We are to remain receptive to that poignancy; never to rush ahead, like children scattering the scent of flowers in their haste to smell more flowers. In reading, our goal is not to finish a book, but to be done with it. Really done with it. Just as, in travel, we do not desire to reach a destination, but to make a journey; to savor the sights and sounds, so as to add to our stock of experience, and to arrive more richly rewarded than when we left. What does it profit us, to close the covers on a book, yet retain nothing of it's contents? Or to retain only the most superficial points; the data and not the thrust; the letter and not the spirit? A book devoured in this way (devoured whole) must still be digested, but the stomach will be forced to perform, not without distress, those actions which the teeth refused. And this is true of all experience; of the greater journey, the greater tome, the greater banquet, that is life. Is it any wonder, to see old age spent in the mulling over of experiences which were so imperfectly understood when they occurred? At the pace we now live our lives, it would appear that many more lifetimes, or "afterlifetimes", would be needed, in order to process and fully integrate all that has happened to us thus far.

Only talent sees genius.

In paradise, all hearts are just the same, but then they break differently, and they heal in odd, misshapen, unexpected ways. They never cast the same shadows again.

I'm more likely to judge a person for being guarded, -- for not opening up and showing me something real, -- than for anything they could possibly show me.

The wise know well how to contemplate old age and death, but every simple man thinks he has time enough to spare, and imagines the years stretched out languidly before him, in which he will perform those good and pleasurable works he has conceived in his heart; a thoroughly presumptuous way to live, when you know not whether you shall awake tomorrow morning!
 

Questions For The Priest

In attempting to formulate views of Christian doctrine, -- views which would accord equally with both orthodoxy and my own reason, -- several difficult contradictions, or problems, have presented themselves, more or less consistently. I’ve attempted to divide them into firm categories, but it should be understood that these issues are, for me, deeply intertwined, and only teased apart here somewhat arbitrarily, for the sake of convenience.

[The following is a truncated version, with several questions omitted, -- again, for the sake of convenience.]

1.)       1.) THE WILL OF GOD 

          We are told by some mystics that it is blessedness to receive all things as created by God, and as manifestations of His unerring will, but it seems clear that many things happen which are horrific or abominable in the sight of God, and not at all according to His will. Should the sayings of these mystics be interpreted, or perhaps reformed, to suggest that God’s will is evident, not in what happens, -- not in created things, -- but, in a certain attitude or response to what happens? 

2.)       2.) THE WILL OF MAN 

 If every good work is performed by the grace of God, -- if it is to Him that all credit is due, and must be rendered, -- then, how can we be free to choose what is good?

How can the abdication of one’s personal will be considered an assertion of that will; or a free expression of that will; or the only expression of that will desired by God?

If the will of man is in opposition to God’s will, and if freedom means only the ability to make foolish, uninformed, weak, hasty, short-sighted, or cowardly choices, then, is free will really a gift, -- or a curse?

If the journey of the fallen soul is analogous to the parable of the prodigal son, then, was it somehow necessary to lose God through disobedience in order to fully experience and appreciate His love; in the form of forgiveness; that “fatted calf”? (Is evil necessary to the highest good?) 

3.)       3.) RESIST NOT EVIL

 When Christ instructs us to welcome the abuse of enemies, and to give more than is wanted to those who demand more than is due, he does not say, “If they repent first”. He places no conditions and, rather, appears desirous that the gifts of forgiveness and charity be showered on those who are LEAST worthy of them (though, it may be, most in need of them); as if to emphasize the idea that the consolations of God are not given according to the measurable love we have for Him, but, according to the immeasurable love He has for us; not by works, but by grace. If we are truly called to return good for evil, -- not to condemn, but to forgive and forbear the iniquities of others, nor to love only those who love us first, as “even sinners do”, but, in order to “be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect”, to treat the most abject sinners no worse than we would treat the Most High God (“for whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me”), -- how can we reconcile this injunction with belief in a legalistic God, capable of rendering hellfire, or anything other than infinite mercy, in return for the crime of unbelief; a God who is merciful only to those who confess (or who make their confession in His name), and, evidently, nowhere near as forgiving as He asks us to be, or as He has exemplified in the person of Jesus Christ?

4.)   4.) SALVATION      

 In what sense, or how deeply, is the soul drawn into communion with Christ, and brought under the protection of His Holy Spirit, through contemplation of His holy life; -- and to what degree must we remain divided from God, who have yet to encounter “the inward man”, so as to be united by theophany with that power which gives unambiguous evidence of itself, in the performance of miracles and heroic deeds, in the absence of self-regard, and in the bearing of a supernatural equanimity?

Christ promises that, if we believe in Him, we will perform miracles as great, and greater, than the ones He performed. Who among us has this kind of faith? Who claims to believe? Who “takes the name of the Lord” (calls himself Christian), but cannot give sight to the blind, nor make the lame walk, -- as if to give evidence against the promise of Christ? According to the test which Jesus Himself has set down, it would appear that only a number of distinguished saints and desert fathers were possessed of genuine faith.

If John the Baptist was called by Christ “greater than all those born of woman” and, yet, even he was “less than the least one in the kingdom of Heaven”, how can we be so presumptuous as to imagine that the pearly gates lie open to us? Because we believe? But John believed, and was not content with calling Christ “Lord, Lord”. Rather, he did what was commanded; he lived in poverty, with enmity towards none, and died a martyr for the faith. Have we known anyone to do as much? Yet, in heaven, he is called “less than the least”.

Grist

Promises are made by the people we believe ourselves to be,
but they are broken or kept by the people we really are.

False monk!
It is not out of humility that you seek to obliterate your story,
and cannot suffer to be a story among stories.

With the self-same tools,
devils tempt and angels teach;
how we make use of them is all.

The instant we stop taking things for granted,
we come up against the soul, --
and can no longer walk down the street.

The child deprived of discipline does not remain a child, but becomes a parasite. Inertia has always this downward tendency. Who does not strive to advance, loses what ground he has gained.

The great truths of the mystics are not for us. We never earned them, and they are not our own. We fool ourselves, if we think such harmony as the saints witnessed exists for us; between the world and ourselves, or between ourselves and God. Those blinding, ecstatic glimpses of theophany amount to nothing, if they do not inspire us to the practice of deep, meditative prayer. No doubt, Providence is forever at work; all things are well ordered, and tending towards perfection. But this order is not in sympathy, nor will it ever sympathize, with personal egos. For the vast majority of us, whom Huxley calls "the nice, ordinary, unregenerate people", the world is a mortar and pestle, grinding our ambitions to dust, and the Word of the Lord is anathema to all we hold dear.

The people of our time have no capacity for the spiritual life. Our struggles take place in the mud, while the higher conflicts are quite beyond us. Self-interest shapes our means and determines our ends. We are spoiled and desensitized, incapable of suffering. Our ideals are petty. Our ambitions feeble, guilty things. We are lost souls; haunting flesh, and rebellious to the light. The world is a possession we cannot relinquish, and the preservation of which costs us all that we are. Truly, we are a wasted people. Nevertheless, we have no more reason to despair than the ancients, seeing that men of all times have found the spiritual life intrinsically unattainable -- at least, by their own merits. There is something about the spiritual life which is always beyond us, always unlived, always potential. If one can never be perfect, neither can one's spiritual practice be perfect. Yet, the grace of God can even make a higher perfection out of our imperfection; in our weakness, He is strong. Compared to the Lord, who is infinite, the efforts of the ablest men are sickly, insipid things. How shall we not have compassion for every individual, regardless of circumstance? The world is an impassable river, in whose current we are all caught and swept against the rocks. From the frailest to the most robust, we are in over our heads. But, then, we were never meant to cross. Only to drown, and learn the vanity of our strength.

Prayer is sincere only when we think we're faking it,
humility is at its peak when we're struck by our pride,
and compassion ignites when we feel ourselves cold.

The biblical verse, "Milk for babes, and meat for strong men," describes and prescribes a kind of moral relativism, which is, yet, not entirely subjective. In rendering milk to the one, and meat to the other, we are not applying a double-standard, at all. Rather, the two are, in fact, analogous. What is good for the goose may be good for the gander, but there is no such likeness between child and mature adult. The very notion of relativity even presupposes an objective standard; while a suit must be tailored differently for differently-sized men, the suit must, nonetheless, be tailored to fit. 

How may our spirits be ignited by the contemplation of the saints? What have we to do with them? Can a candle be lit from the sun? It would melt and be dissolved into atoms before it ever reached that place! And yet, we know by honest reflection that no candle could be lit, if the sun had not first been set ablaze, and warmed the earth into life. Moreover, even suns disperse their light, and are lost to view, like candles, in the limitlessness of space.

Asking the question, "Why is there suffering?" (or "What purpose could the existence of suffering ultimately serve?") does more good for the soul than any answer we are likely to come up with. In fact, the purpose of suffering, if it must have one, may be none other than to provoke the contemplation of a purpose so exalted as to render a justification for suffering. In other words, the contemplation of its purpose IS its purpose. 

Camus was mistaken. Not suicide, but procreation, is the most pressing question confronting philosophers. Death will occur in any case, but life is in our grip.

We take all for granted! How could we not? Look you, how many treasures surround us -- we are, ourselves, composed of treasures, composing treasures, and each enriching one another endlessly. Do you know what it is, to have Being? And eyes to look out of? Companions you can touch? The earth beneath your feet, and gravity enveloping your limbs, holding you to it? The heavens stretching out beyond reckoning in all directions? To laugh, to sing, to dance, or to grieve for one who is lost? To wrap oneself in starlight and reflect upon the nature of a god? All this is ours! All this, felicity inestimable. If only we could see it.

I am pessimistic with respect to mankind, but optimistic with respect to man. I have faith in the individual. Only individuals can rise, paradoxically, by keeping their feet on the ground, and ranking themselves with the crowd. 

I am water funneled between rocks,
pinched and wrenched and routed, --
but I gush out in a bright cacophony
of pleasure and force!

When I was a Determinist, it seemed to me that a person's perspective could only be broadened by making an examination of (what appeared to be) the antecedent causes of any single occurrence. It was, I felt, entirely shortsighted to stop at a man's will, when looking to detect the motive for his choice, or the reason for his motive. Whatever answer one gave, I insisted the question could always be repeated, "Why?" It was plain to me that we could always go deeper, always discover another link in the chain of causation. But I was mistaken. We do not enlarge our perspective, or add to our knowledge of a particular instance, by making an inventory of all that preceded it; on the contrary, we merely narrow our focus to consider the minutiae which is not antecedent to, but, ultimately, contained within, a given moment. The reasoning of determinism is a simple deconstruction. It is a breaking-down of effects into causes, without realizing that the causes are not external motivators, but intrinsic elements within the effects. This realization speaks to the heart of free-will, and the spirit of existentialism. It ends in the conviction that this present moment can never be evaded, mitigated, reduced, or explained away by a scrutiny of the past.

Religious denominations need not be causes for serious division or strife. It is conceivable that boundaries may be respectfully maintained. One does not wear a catcher's mitt to a game of basketball, nor propose the calculating of planetary orbits at a convention of biochemists, nor insist on hearing jazz when one has come to attend an opera. Why, then, should it be thought narrow or malicious, to exclude the Dhammapada from a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, or Christian service? I propose that anyone may practice, if he so chooses, Christianity in the morning, Sikhism in the afternoon, and Buddhism at night. But I say, nonetheless, that it is bad form to be Christian in a mosque, or Taoist in the Temple of Athena. When in Rome, I am always Catholic.

On Works

Whatever we labor on, we labor on ourselves. An industrious man keeps himself vigorous, disciplined, flexible, and alert. He is the true product of his labors. And while he cannot make a work great, the work, if it demands much of him, can make him great. For it is the masterpiece makes the master; he does not set his seal on it, but it sets its seal on him, as it falls upon him. Truly, if God gives calling to a stone, the stone will come. And if God has called him, it will be seen by his willingness to follow; that is, to place his trust in the Lord; that God will also give him the strength to perform what is asked. Indeed, the work itself will give him the strength to complete it! Do you think Atlas lifts the world because he is strong? I tell you, he is strong because he lifts the world. God does not call a man to great works because the man is great, and worthy of them, but, rather, that by undertaking the works, the man may become so. No mortal was ever prepared to hear the Word of the Lord. Only upon hearing it, do ears become keen and almost equal to the sound.

Philosophy Quotes

"If Napolean had been as intelligent as Spinoza,

he would have lived in a garret and written four books."

~ Anatole France

"Woe to him who in passing should hurl an insult at this gentle and pensive head. He would be punished, as all vulgar souls are punished, by his very vulgarity, and by his incapacity to conceive what is divine. This man, from his granite pedestal, will point out to all men the way of blessedness which he found; and ages hence, the cultivated traveler, passing by this spot, will say in his heart, 'The truest vision ever had of God came, perhaps, here.'"

~ Ernest Renan, in 1882,

at the unveiling of the statue of Spinoza in Hague

 "Life is short, but truth works far and lives long; let us speak the truth."

~ Schopenhauer

"He was absolutely alone, with not a single friend; and between one and none there lies an infinity.'

~ Nietzsche, Schopenhauer As Educator

"But Lou Salome did not return his love; his eyes were too sharp and deep for comfort... Nietzsche fled in despair... In truth, he was naive, enthusiastic, romantic, tender to the point of simplicity; his war against tenderness was an attempt to exorcise a virtue which had led to... a wound that never healed... There was so much of Plato in Nietzsche; he feared that art would unteach men to be hard; being tender-minded, he [was] dangerously close to practicing Christianity... yet, in his quiet hours, he knew... that Parsifal's gentleness was as necessary as Siegfried's strength, and that in some cosmic way these cruel oppositions merged into wholesome creative unities. He liked to think of this "stellar friendship" that still bound him, silently... And when, in a lucid moment of his final insanity, he saw a picture of the long-dead Wagner, he said softly, "Him I loved much.""

~ Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy"

On Antinatalism

"The thought of bringing someone into the world fills me with horror.
I would curse myself if I were a father." ~ Gustave Flaubert

""Every great idea is a tyrant when it first appears." ~ Goethe

Before the beginning, the end.

Although it is everything to us, viewed from some magnificent height of spirit, I imagine, our whole world is no more than another obscure fetish or fad.

Our lesson in coming here was never more than this: Turn around. The signs are everywhere. "Stop" "Wrong Way" "Dead End" But we have so much blind faith that there are no wrong ways, no dead ends, and we just go on. "Surely, the end is just around the corner. Let's breed a few more generations and see where that takes us!"

We are already spirit. We don't become spirit because we enter bodies. On the contrary. We forget ourselves, our true nature, our true home. We are prodigal children, intent on making our own way in the world, while merely squandering our divine inheritance here. Let us return to the family estate, where even the servants have their fill.

I think we are like builders, picking up materials to test their metal. We do not have to accept whatever comes ready to hand. We can discard it, if it seems to be unsuitable for our purposes. Do we want to build corporeal or celestial, sensual or spiritual, mansions? My opinion is that this realm is too heavy and cumbersome for my purposes. If that makes me weak or cowardly or lazy or impatient according to someone else's perspective, so be it. They can think what they will. People said the same about every hermit who ever left society to go into the desert and look for God, -- or every hermit who ever came back to society only to call others out, and suggest another way.

For my part, I believe there is much, much more than what we see down here, and I think it is in our power to decide for ourselves, if we wish to remain down here learning patience (and a million lesser things, perhaps), or if we wish to ascend to realms where there is greater freedom of movement. Whether we have a right to bring souls here is, to my mind, a matter for debate.

It is easy to anticipate the accusations which must fall upon a philosopher wishing to indicate more forcefully a path out of the world. But whenever anyone spoke of going into the mountains, coming down from the mountains, or crossing an ocean, people always replied that it was presumptuousness, restlessness, arrogance, foolhardiness, or some such thing. Nevertheless, it was more likely a spirit of exploration, demanding just as much faith, courage, and imagination as it takes to live in this world.