Posts tagged August 2011

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Have a body not a soul.



“Abbot Zerchi smiled thinly. 

“You don’t have a soul, Doctor.  You are a soul. 


You have a body, temporarily.”  Walter Miller, A Canticle for Leibowitz  

…temporarily.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to have a body not a soul.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The spirituality of Snow.

“Some years back while doing graduate work, I was working as a chaplain at a hostel in a poorer section of San Francisco.  One of the persons I was working with, a very dedicated person said to me:

“Father do you really think God gives a damn whether you say your morning and evening prayers, whether you hold a grudge, or whether you hop in and out of bed a few times with someone you aren’t married to?  These small, private things are so unimportant.

What possible difference do they make in the light of the larger questions of peace and justice?  God hasn’t got time for our private little prayers and little moral struggles!”


For him, spirituality meant the struggle for peace and justice, taking care of God’s poor.

Just that.

Private prayer and private morality were so dwarfed by these larger issues as to seem unimportant.


As important as is the struggle for peace and justice, becoming a prophet implies much more.

Prophetic witness lies as much in being a happy and non-bitter person, as in being a person of prayer, morality and social justice; though admittedly, the former is based a lot on the latter.”  Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten Among the Lilies

What is a “Snow White” spirituality?


Snow White and the seven dwarfs.








Just that.


The former is based on the latter 

…and the “latter” makes her whiter than snow.”  (Psalm 51:7)

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the spirituality of snow.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Walk in deep shadows.

“We look for light, but all is darkness; 
for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows.”  Isaiah 59:9

…consider how the clouds cast shadows into the canyon of conversion.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to walk in deep shadows.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Liking just like Mikey.

“You have tasted of death now,” said the Old Man.  “Is it good?”  “It is good,” said Mossy.  “It is better than life.”  “No,” said the Old Man, “it is only more life.”  George MacDonald, Death

“What’s this stuff?”

“Some cereal. Supposed to be good for you.”

“Did you try it?”

“I’m not gonna try it. You try it.”

“I’m not gonna try it.”

“Let’s get Mikey!”

“Yeah!”

“He won’t eat it. He hates everything…”

“HE LIKES IT! HEY MIKEY!”


“When you bring life home, don’t tell the kids it’s one of those - nutritional cereals you’ve been trying to get them to eat.

You’re the only one who has to know.”  LIFE cereal, Little Mikey (1972)

The taste of death?









…it is only more life.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to liking just like Mikey.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

‘Only’ build like Bob.


“I won’t admit without a struggle that when I speak of God ‘uttering’ or ‘inventing’ the creatures I am ‘watering down the concept of creation.’  I am trying to give it, by remote analogies, some sort of context.  

I know that to create is defined as ‘to make out of nothing’, es nihilo.

But I take that to mean ‘not out of any pre-existing material’.

It can’t mean that God makes what God has not thought of, or that He gives His creatures any powers or beauties which He Himself does not possess. Why, we think that even human work comes nearest to creation when the maker has ‘got it all out of his own head.’

This act, as it is for God, must always remain totally inconceivable to man.


For we - even our poets and musicians and inventors - never, in the ultimate sense, make.


We only build.

We always have materials to build from.


All we can know about the act of creation must be derived from what we can gather about the relation of the creatures to their creator.”  C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm

…we always have materials to build from.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to ‘only’ build like Bob.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Get to Newfoundland.

“If a man has once looked at the Atlantic from the beach, and then goes and looks at a map of the Atlantic, he also will be turning from something real to something less real: turning from real waves to a bit of colored paper.  

But here comes the point.

The map is admittedly only colored paper, but there are two things you have to remember about it.  

In the first place, it is based on what hundreds and thousands of people have found sailing the real Atlantic.  In that way it has behind it masses of experience just as real as the one you could have from the beach; only, while yours would be a single isolated glimpse, the map fits all those different experiences together.  In the second place, if you want to go anywhere, the map is absolutely necessary.  

As long as you are content with walks on the beach, your own glimpses are far more fun than looking at a map.  But the map is going to be more use than walks on the beach if you want to get to America.


But you will not get to Newfoundland by studying the Atlantic that way, and you will not get eternal life by simply feeling the presence of God in flowers or music.  

Neither will you get anywhere by looking at maps without going to sea.  Nor will you be very safe if you go to sea without a map.”  C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“If there’s a place you got to go, 
I’m the one you need to know, 
I’m the Map!
I’m the Map!
I’m the Map!
If there’s a place you got to get, 
I can get you there I bet, 
I’m the Map!”  Map from “Dora the Explorer”, I’m the Map






I have a GIVENNESS NOW to get to Newfoundland.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Sanctity without strings.

“Grace does not take hold of us as if we were planes or rockets guided by remote control.

Yet there is a rather common tendency among spiritual men to imagine themselves as hollow, empty beings entirely governed and moved by a remote supernatural agency from outside and above themselves. 

This indeed pays homage to the idea that God is infinitely above man.  But it entirely ignores the equally important truth of God’s immanence within man. 

The spiritual man is not and cannot be a mere puppet, agitated from above by invisible wires which he himself does not perceive.

 

If that were so, the spiritual life would be the worst kind of self-alienation.

Sanctity would be nothing but schizophrenia.”  Thomas Merton, New Man

Schizophrenic?






…if God’s immanence wasn’t within man.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to sanctity without strings.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Red Seas of separation.


“Contemplation is a mystery in which God reveals Himself to us as the very centre of our most intimate self - intimior intimo meo - as Saint Augustine said.

When the realization of His presence bursts upon us, our own self disappears in Him and we pass mystically through the Red Sea of separation to lose ourselves (and thus find our true selves) in Him.

Contemplation is the highest and most paradoxical form of self-realization, obtained by apparent self-annihilation.”  Thomas Merton, New Man

Lost at sea?







…intimior intimo meo.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to my red sea of separation.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

The holiness of the hole.


“The Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a huge stone, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went plumb-down. 

“That is the way,” he said.

“But there are no stairs. You must throw yourself in. There is no other way.”  George MacDonald, No Other Way




This is the “Grand Canyon.”







…there is no other way.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to the holiness of the hole.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Fifty-two names for snow.

“The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love.”  Margaret Atwood

Fifty-two names for love?






…fifty-one too many.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to fifty-two names for snow.