I don't know how, but tonight I actually learned alot about myself. I think the 3 causes of these changes that I noticed are: 1. Going to Counseling, 2. Accepting Aristotle/Thomas into my brain, 3. Becoming Catholic (I know everyone's sick of me talking about it, but it will be really brief I promise).
Tonight, I was guilted into going to a party I didn't want to go to. It was with a bunch of friends from my Mennonite high school. The birthday boy is an atheist and all night he was provoking conversation about God and/or Atheism. But to my surprise, I didn't take the bait. I just accepted him as he was - not to say I thought he was right or anything, but I felt he needed time and space and that it wasn't worth arguing about right then.
After everyone was finished at the bar we were seated in, they all wanted to go to another bar. I felt that I was done, I'd had a great time, but didn't wan to go to this new bar. Everyone started guilting me and trying to persuade me. The nicer folk tried to make excuses for me ('he probably has to work in the morning'), and one friend even used Religion to taunt me "it's because we aren't Catholic isn't it!" (I enjoyed this ridiculous red-herring, along with people shouting about Ireland). But I thought - what would Aristotle do/what will make Andrew most fulfilled. After pondering this I thought, going home will be the happiest choice. I didn't owe any obligation or responsibility to anyone, I had been nice to everyone, so why did I have to go out afterwards? The short answer is: I didn't. So I just refused, I just said no. I decided not to lie and make excuses, I just said it plainly that I didn't want to go. So I left.
I remember my counselor once saying about depression 'if you're sad, just say "I'm sad, and that's ok, so what?" So tonight I just said "I don't want to be cool, I don't want to go to another bar, and that's ok". It was classic peer pressure - my friend caved and went with everyone else (though I think he was just chasing a skirt). But on the drive home I had an epiphany: I don't need to be cool, I never will be cool, and that's ok. I have facebook quotes from 18th century Tory MP Viscount Henry St. John Bolingbroke, and the medieval philosopher Boethius, that's not cool or normal. I'm 275 pounds give or take some, that's not normal, that's not cool. I have depression that comes and goes. And I'm Catholic - which to cite Evelyn Waugh just makes me completely different from the surrounding world. There's nothing normal or cool about me, and I'm just accepting that. ... Maybe that makes me cool...
Showing posts with label Roman Catholicism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roman Catholicism. Show all posts
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Friday, December 18, 2009
So True
"In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we eventually learn that here, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished" - Karl Rahner
This reminds me of C.S. Lewis' quote where he says that if we were created for the finite, then why does it feel so empty in our soul? Why does everything scream for an ending if there is no ending?
This reminds me of C.S. Lewis' quote where he says that if we were created for the finite, then why does it feel so empty in our soul? Why does everything scream for an ending if there is no ending?
Friday, December 11, 2009
Busy-ness as Quasi-Virtue
I haven't been in depression lately so I haven't posted as often on here - usually I have less interesting thoughts when I'm functioning 'normally'. But I was thinking about tonight and how I had nothing I had to do today. I just sat around, I read a bit, the most enjoyable part of the day was doing my laundry and making my bed and cleaning my room. I mean, I hate doing those things, but it made me feel like a human again after sitting around all that time. I look forward to moving out again so that I am forced to take care of myself, because as I act and remain busy, even though it frustrates me, it's good for me, and in the long run I enjoy life alot more.
I think sitting around and not doing anything is probably the worst thing for me. I am hopeful that I'll probably do my Master's and Doctorate (God willing) in some far off land where I have to worry about bills and shop for groceries, and work, and be ridiculously busy.
Perhaps being busy is a quasi-virtue. It's a habit that helps me sustain other beneficial habits. I know the longer I'm at home, the less virtuous I'm becoming. I anxiously await busy-ness, because only when there are bad things in my life, can I enjoy the good things and be hopeful. When everything is fine, it seems to be a slow downward path, the path to Hell really. And as good students of the Greeks, we all know that Virtue is the path to Happiness / Eudaimonia.
So if you're immensely busy and stressed and you barely had time to read this, perhaps you should consider it a blessing. And perhaps I should read this again next time I'm bitching about how busy I am. In the mean time I'll be loafing around (until work tomorrow) and reading Evelyn Waugh (a MALE R.C convert like myself) or possibly watching a movie.
I think sitting around and not doing anything is probably the worst thing for me. I am hopeful that I'll probably do my Master's and Doctorate (God willing) in some far off land where I have to worry about bills and shop for groceries, and work, and be ridiculously busy.
Perhaps being busy is a quasi-virtue. It's a habit that helps me sustain other beneficial habits. I know the longer I'm at home, the less virtuous I'm becoming. I anxiously await busy-ness, because only when there are bad things in my life, can I enjoy the good things and be hopeful. When everything is fine, it seems to be a slow downward path, the path to Hell really. And as good students of the Greeks, we all know that Virtue is the path to Happiness / Eudaimonia.
So if you're immensely busy and stressed and you barely had time to read this, perhaps you should consider it a blessing. And perhaps I should read this again next time I'm bitching about how busy I am. In the mean time I'll be loafing around (until work tomorrow) and reading Evelyn Waugh (a MALE R.C convert like myself) or possibly watching a movie.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Essays, Sartre, and looking in the Mirror
I have 3 essays due in the next lil while. Today I skipped class to write one so that I could finish it. I have 1 page so far (double spaced)... that was the result of 20 minutes of actually forcing myself to write. Then I went to go see New Moon, and now I'm back.
... The last 2 weeks I've been going crazy because I'm not able to force myself to work. Colbert once said in an interview where he talked about a bunch of his family dying in a plane crash "any threat they could make seemed pretty silly", in regards to his teachers for not finishing his work. He said that all education needs fear to work. I think I'm losing the fear. I'm not going to pretend like I'm independant or anything, I'm definately sure I'll suck it up and finish all these essays. Hell I'll probably get 75-85% on all of them. But I just feel like I'm starting to not care.
I feel like I'm an actor in a play about my life, but that I've got so tired of acting that I'm starting to get out of character, and people around me are starting to get scared/disturbed. I talked to a friend the other day about Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous post-modern atheist. I've only read his wikipedia.
Lance told me his ethics were based on the principle that as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror, you're ok. The only ethics are self-preservation and self-esteem I guess you could say in his model - as opposed to most atheists who stick with Utilitarianism.
I haven't done anything evil really besides the usual.
However, on the drive home today I couldn't look myself in the mirror. I don't really know why. I think it was because I had just seen so many beautiful people around me. It was almost eerie. Like living in a movie. I was grossed out a bit. The other day I was at the Dentist and I kept looking at the pictures they had of all the perfect people with perfect teeth. I started laughing and the hygenist looked a little puzzled. I didn't tell her why I laughed, but it was at the pictures, I didn't belong there. The Dentist told me about how my tooth was dead and I pre-empted him (because he'd told me it 6 months ago with the same severity). He listed a series of surgeries I could get, I told him they could rip it out and I could get the gold tooth I've always wanted.
...silence...
some people have no sense of humor. Anyway, he looked a little worried and said something about getting a second opinion and left. Then I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled. I started laughing, thinking about the giant gap in my teeth. Thinking about how it would continue to make me look even weirder. It was a weaker version of the hysterical laugh I had before.
at least I'm not as ugly as Sartre, no wonder he was an advocate of 'free love'.
I read a bit about Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (Jesuit) and his philosophy/theology/phenomenology. He fused Catholicism with Evolution and argued that the world is being drawn towards God the 'Omega Principle' in a constant state of becoming/evolution which will culminate in complete redemption. He was criticized by the Church, but eventually garnered some respect. He's a love-hate person in the Church, much like the Society (Jesuits) itself.
.
I think I'm moving away from the Omega principle. I'm devolving. I'm becoming more and more lost. I read Sartre's idea about being trapped by your own freedom, I kind of feel that way right now.
...
i've just wasted another hour that was supposed to be for my essay. FUCK!
...
I wish I could go drinking with Simon Schama or watch some mythbusters, or get stuck in an elevator with Kari Byron.
... The last 2 weeks I've been going crazy because I'm not able to force myself to work. Colbert once said in an interview where he talked about a bunch of his family dying in a plane crash "any threat they could make seemed pretty silly", in regards to his teachers for not finishing his work. He said that all education needs fear to work. I think I'm losing the fear. I'm not going to pretend like I'm independant or anything, I'm definately sure I'll suck it up and finish all these essays. Hell I'll probably get 75-85% on all of them. But I just feel like I'm starting to not care.
I feel like I'm an actor in a play about my life, but that I've got so tired of acting that I'm starting to get out of character, and people around me are starting to get scared/disturbed. I talked to a friend the other day about Jean-Paul Sartre, the famous post-modern atheist. I've only read his wikipedia.
Lance told me his ethics were based on the principle that as long as you can look at yourself in the mirror, you're ok. The only ethics are self-preservation and self-esteem I guess you could say in his model - as opposed to most atheists who stick with Utilitarianism.
I haven't done anything evil really besides the usual.
However, on the drive home today I couldn't look myself in the mirror. I don't really know why. I think it was because I had just seen so many beautiful people around me. It was almost eerie. Like living in a movie. I was grossed out a bit. The other day I was at the Dentist and I kept looking at the pictures they had of all the perfect people with perfect teeth. I started laughing and the hygenist looked a little puzzled. I didn't tell her why I laughed, but it was at the pictures, I didn't belong there. The Dentist told me about how my tooth was dead and I pre-empted him (because he'd told me it 6 months ago with the same severity). He listed a series of surgeries I could get, I told him they could rip it out and I could get the gold tooth I've always wanted.
...silence...
some people have no sense of humor. Anyway, he looked a little worried and said something about getting a second opinion and left. Then I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled. I started laughing, thinking about the giant gap in my teeth. Thinking about how it would continue to make me look even weirder. It was a weaker version of the hysterical laugh I had before.
at least I'm not as ugly as Sartre, no wonder he was an advocate of 'free love'.
I read a bit about Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (Jesuit) and his philosophy/theology/phenomenology. He fused Catholicism with Evolution and argued that the world is being drawn towards God the 'Omega Principle' in a constant state of becoming/evolution which will culminate in complete redemption. He was criticized by the Church, but eventually garnered some respect. He's a love-hate person in the Church, much like the Society (Jesuits) itself.
.
I think I'm moving away from the Omega principle. I'm devolving. I'm becoming more and more lost. I read Sartre's idea about being trapped by your own freedom, I kind of feel that way right now.
...
i've just wasted another hour that was supposed to be for my essay. FUCK!
...
I wish I could go drinking with Simon Schama or watch some mythbusters, or get stuck in an elevator with Kari Byron.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
A Cold Walk, Twilight/New Moon, Wikihow, and Unfinished Homework
I was home alone tonight and I sat down to watch Top Gear with some Butterscotch ice cream. When I looked down at myself. I was feeling particularly obese, so I threw my ice cream out...all of it. I went through the act in my mind to evaluate it ethically. It was objectively a bad action (wasting food) but the motive (moderation) was good and the situation was good (I'm already morbidly obese). So I figured it was ok to do.
I've been reading Twilight and now am half way through New Moon. This officially makes me gay, I know, but I think it's just because the books are about love and beautiful girls and stuff, and I'm desperately lonely (in the words of SNL jeopardy's Martha Stewart). But they've been making me think I really need to find a girlfriend again. It's been a year and 2 months since I last kissed a girl and that's far too long.
In my sudden bout of self-hatred I did 2 stupid things. I went to my bathroom to try to throw up (I could never be bulimic if I don't even have the willpower to diet don't worry). And then I decided that instead I should try and exercise (so that I could get a Bella of my own). I put on my rosary, and went for a walk in the freezing cold. I prayed a pseudo-St. Michael Chaplet "O God make Speed to Save me, O Lord Make Haste To Help Me, Glory be...etc." x ? , as well as some of my usual painfully honest and blunt prayers which contain far too much Anglo-Saxon.
I finally got home and my legs were tingling from the friction and yet freezing from the weather. I read some more New Moon - a terribly depressing book , which isn't helping my recently returned Depression.
So then for some reason I looked and saw that I had twice as much Latin homework as I had thought. So I just decided to put it off, and looked on WikiHow for how to find a girlfriend.
One thing I think was hillarious, they kept saying "be confident" and "be yourself". What if your personality is self-deprecating and unconfident. Eh?! riddle me that !
Anyway, I think it was a waste of time as I already know how to talk to girls, and I think I'm pretty charismatic, it's just that if I was about 100 pounds lighter, wasn't Catholic / dogmatic, and cared about meaningless pop-culture stuff, i'd be fine. But I am all those things, so it doesn't seem like anythings going to happen for a while. I should probably get up and do my Latin.
Oh but 4 good things happened (so that it's not all depressing)..
1. I had an amazing talk with my philosophy prof about St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotelian Metaphysics, and Post-Modernism (the fact that those things excite me are a perfect example of my aforementioned unpopular interests).
2. I openly disagreed with a girl on Religion in the American Revolution and argued it was a Presbyterian revolt against the CofE and she actually said she respected my opinion and was glad I challenged her. A kindred spirit! (I bet she has a boyfriend).
3. I got to have lunch with my best friend today.
4. I got to have a good meeting with the Roman Catholic asst. chaplain and we discussed the faith and what I was learning from the Newman Club, and he treated me like a person/end rather than means to something.
Well. Another week chasing Eudaimonia via women, weightloss, and wishy-washy teen literature, as well as western philosophy
I've been reading Twilight and now am half way through New Moon. This officially makes me gay, I know, but I think it's just because the books are about love and beautiful girls and stuff, and I'm desperately lonely (in the words of SNL jeopardy's Martha Stewart). But they've been making me think I really need to find a girlfriend again. It's been a year and 2 months since I last kissed a girl and that's far too long.
In my sudden bout of self-hatred I did 2 stupid things. I went to my bathroom to try to throw up (I could never be bulimic if I don't even have the willpower to diet don't worry). And then I decided that instead I should try and exercise (so that I could get a Bella of my own). I put on my rosary, and went for a walk in the freezing cold. I prayed a pseudo-St. Michael Chaplet "O God make Speed to Save me, O Lord Make Haste To Help Me, Glory be...etc." x ? , as well as some of my usual painfully honest and blunt prayers which contain far too much Anglo-Saxon.
I finally got home and my legs were tingling from the friction and yet freezing from the weather. I read some more New Moon - a terribly depressing book , which isn't helping my recently returned Depression.
So then for some reason I looked and saw that I had twice as much Latin homework as I had thought. So I just decided to put it off, and looked on WikiHow for how to find a girlfriend.
One thing I think was hillarious, they kept saying "be confident" and "be yourself". What if your personality is self-deprecating and unconfident. Eh?! riddle me that !
Anyway, I think it was a waste of time as I already know how to talk to girls, and I think I'm pretty charismatic, it's just that if I was about 100 pounds lighter, wasn't Catholic / dogmatic, and cared about meaningless pop-culture stuff, i'd be fine. But I am all those things, so it doesn't seem like anythings going to happen for a while. I should probably get up and do my Latin.
Oh but 4 good things happened (so that it's not all depressing)..
1. I had an amazing talk with my philosophy prof about St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotelian Metaphysics, and Post-Modernism (the fact that those things excite me are a perfect example of my aforementioned unpopular interests).
2. I openly disagreed with a girl on Religion in the American Revolution and argued it was a Presbyterian revolt against the CofE and she actually said she respected my opinion and was glad I challenged her. A kindred spirit! (I bet she has a boyfriend).
3. I got to have lunch with my best friend today.
4. I got to have a good meeting with the Roman Catholic asst. chaplain and we discussed the faith and what I was learning from the Newman Club, and he treated me like a person/end rather than means to something.
Well. Another week chasing Eudaimonia via women, weightloss, and wishy-washy teen literature, as well as western philosophy
Thursday, September 24, 2009
A Cool Picture
This is a picture I really like of the Cologne Roman Catholic Cathedral, we were learning about it in history class and how it apparently took like 500 odd years to build...
Three Good Things
Yesterday after class I didn't want to get home earlier because I would have to study for Latin, so I drove her home. It was the first time I'd been in her little area during the day time and it looked alot nicer. (It was the strangest thing though, it was the first town I've seen without a Church). Anyway it was a nice drive home and I was listening to Weezer's Red Album. I really like Heartsongs (I think it's called that) and 2 other tracks I don't know the names of. But the country lanes were really nice and peaceful, I felt like I could drive anywhere and was free for a little while.
I got my haircut and it was SO weird having someone get paid to in a shallow sense a. Care about my appearance, and b. Be personally and physically involved in my life. I didn't think I'd ever get lonely to the point of having the girl cutting my hair be a good point in my day. But such is life. It was only like 10 minutes, and the girl was ugly, but it was just so strange. Now I know why prostitution is probably such a long standing tradition.
Last night I went for a walk and the stars were really bright, but it was almost pitch black out. I did a rosary as I walked and it was really calming. Also when I got to scary parts of the walk it reminded me of what real instinctual danger feels like and made me realize how stupid worrying about school is.
When you focus on your life and just the immediate present at certain moments in your day with all your energy, it's almost scary how "real" life is. But on the flipside of that, it's amazing how much I can drift through life just thinking and having my body on autopilot.
I got my haircut and it was SO weird having someone get paid to in a shallow sense a. Care about my appearance, and b. Be personally and physically involved in my life. I didn't think I'd ever get lonely to the point of having the girl cutting my hair be a good point in my day. But such is life. It was only like 10 minutes, and the girl was ugly, but it was just so strange. Now I know why prostitution is probably such a long standing tradition.
Last night I went for a walk and the stars were really bright, but it was almost pitch black out. I did a rosary as I walked and it was really calming. Also when I got to scary parts of the walk it reminded me of what real instinctual danger feels like and made me realize how stupid worrying about school is.
When you focus on your life and just the immediate present at certain moments in your day with all your energy, it's almost scary how "real" life is. But on the flipside of that, it's amazing how much I can drift through life just thinking and having my body on autopilot.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Hopkins Poem & Thought on Nature
(Felled 1879)
"My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering
weed-winding bank.
O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew-
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being so slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will made no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene." - Gerard Manley Hopkins
He was a Roman Catholic poet and convert from Anglicanism. I like this poem, it reminds me immensely of Tolkien and the sort of awareness of urbanization that British academics were developing at the turn of the century (19th-20th).
I was just thinking the other day thought that no matter what happens to me in life, I will always be glad to think that Nature will go on. The trees are the true sovereigns of the world. When they're all dead, we will all die.
"My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering
weed-winding bank.
O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew-
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being so slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will made no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc unselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene." - Gerard Manley Hopkins
He was a Roman Catholic poet and convert from Anglicanism. I like this poem, it reminds me immensely of Tolkien and the sort of awareness of urbanization that British academics were developing at the turn of the century (19th-20th).
I was just thinking the other day thought that no matter what happens to me in life, I will always be glad to think that Nature will go on. The trees are the true sovereigns of the world. When they're all dead, we will all die.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Cowardice
"The power of evil men lies in the cowardice of the good." — St. John Bosco
I am such a coward. Lord deliver me.
I am such a coward. Lord deliver me.
Gay Grocery Day
I work in a grocery store and I despise working on Sundays. As a self-righteous Christian I always like to be at church to make sure everyone knows that I'm holier than them (sarcasm but also a bit of truth). But such is life, that as a student I have to work sundays. It's amazing the people you see in a grocery store at different times on any given day.
Sunday mornings are usually pretty dead there, but the demographics are more noticable. For example: Homosexuals shop on sundays. While I am in Canada and we're more liberal socially (should read: intolerant to traditional morality) there are more homosexuals around and in public. Toronto (gay) "pride parades" are (in)famous. As a side note I wonder if they'll ever have parades based on other deadly sins (Pride is one of the 7). I guess the Lust parade would be mardi gras, the gluttony parade would have to be short (to make sure not to exercise too much), and the sloth parade would never make it out the door. Ok, my soliloquay is over now.
Anyway, so Gay grocery day I think is sunday, specifically sunday morning. I guess all the gay United and Anglicans shop on other days of the week, but the aside from them, all the homosexuals come grocery shopping sunday morning.
It makes sense if you think about it. Because they wouldn't probably be going to Church (except the Anglicans and United as I mentioned) and would obviously want to put Church out of their mind, so why not get an annoying obligation like grocery shopping out of the way.
I usually pray for every one I see on sunday mornings (not just homosexuals) that they would come to know Jesus and join his family (the Church), and consequently leave their life of sin - as all of us are called to do.
I also think that it's weird when they kiss - the lesbians don't (only on TV), but the guys do.
My atheist friend who worked with me HATED the gays, like REALLY hated them. I could tell you stories of the stuff he did, but I won't (I wouldn't want this blog to be too exciting). It was then I realized that it wasn't just Abrahamic religions that condemned them but also Plato, Aristotle and Natural Law.
It's unnatural, in terms of the Natural Law tradition it'd be called "disordered". Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be a tirade against homosexuals. Lord knows they suffer enough from every side. I just think it's interesting that we (Christians) get blamed for a universal reality ("homophobia", I wonder if fear of murderers would be a psychological disorder "nekrophobia").
A running joke at work is: ask Andrew what his views on Homosexuality are. I always respond: I'm not legally allowed to speak them, as it is now Hate Speech. And then everyone laughs about it because they know my views, and assume it's because I'm Catholic (I heard my Presbyterian, Anglican, and United church co-workers talk about how "homophobic" conservative Christians were on my lunch break). But from now on I'm just going to say:
According to Aristotle, the soul of man seeks the good, virtue, and ultimately happiness because these are a part of it's nature. Homosexuality goes against the nature of the soul. Ergo (therefore) it's wrong.
No one carries Gay Marriage picket signs with Aristotle.
Sunday mornings are usually pretty dead there, but the demographics are more noticable. For example: Homosexuals shop on sundays. While I am in Canada and we're more liberal socially (should read: intolerant to traditional morality) there are more homosexuals around and in public. Toronto (gay) "pride parades" are (in)famous. As a side note I wonder if they'll ever have parades based on other deadly sins (Pride is one of the 7). I guess the Lust parade would be mardi gras, the gluttony parade would have to be short (to make sure not to exercise too much), and the sloth parade would never make it out the door. Ok, my soliloquay is over now.
Anyway, so Gay grocery day I think is sunday, specifically sunday morning. I guess all the gay United and Anglicans shop on other days of the week, but the aside from them, all the homosexuals come grocery shopping sunday morning.
It makes sense if you think about it. Because they wouldn't probably be going to Church (except the Anglicans and United as I mentioned) and would obviously want to put Church out of their mind, so why not get an annoying obligation like grocery shopping out of the way.
I usually pray for every one I see on sunday mornings (not just homosexuals) that they would come to know Jesus and join his family (the Church), and consequently leave their life of sin - as all of us are called to do.
I also think that it's weird when they kiss - the lesbians don't (only on TV), but the guys do.
My atheist friend who worked with me HATED the gays, like REALLY hated them. I could tell you stories of the stuff he did, but I won't (I wouldn't want this blog to be too exciting). It was then I realized that it wasn't just Abrahamic religions that condemned them but also Plato, Aristotle and Natural Law.
It's unnatural, in terms of the Natural Law tradition it'd be called "disordered". Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be a tirade against homosexuals. Lord knows they suffer enough from every side. I just think it's interesting that we (Christians) get blamed for a universal reality ("homophobia", I wonder if fear of murderers would be a psychological disorder "nekrophobia").
A running joke at work is: ask Andrew what his views on Homosexuality are. I always respond: I'm not legally allowed to speak them, as it is now Hate Speech. And then everyone laughs about it because they know my views, and assume it's because I'm Catholic (I heard my Presbyterian, Anglican, and United church co-workers talk about how "homophobic" conservative Christians were on my lunch break). But from now on I'm just going to say:
According to Aristotle, the soul of man seeks the good, virtue, and ultimately happiness because these are a part of it's nature. Homosexuality goes against the nature of the soul. Ergo (therefore) it's wrong.
No one carries Gay Marriage picket signs with Aristotle.
Monday, July 27, 2009
All Too inHuman & The Story of a Girl
If you don't feel like reading all this post just skip to the "BUT"
We have our extended family visiting our house this week (all the Mennonite Brethren folks). I used to be able to talk with my uncles and aunts about theology and my future as a preacher. But now that I'm of the 'peculiar Roman Catholick religion' (as Rabbie Burns would've said - ), no one asks me about anything or talks hopefully about my future.
In that same Roman faith there is a philosophy that is popular among the Pontiffs. It's the idea of "the full human person" or "the intrinsic dignity of the human person". It's the idea(l) that everyone who is born has intrinsic worth and value just because they are in existence. It's what Seneca and St. Thomas Aquinas said when they gave us the choice between "Being a beast, or being a human". The modern neo-Darwinian socialist materialist positivist atheism of today seems to treat us like we're beasts rated on our ability to contribute to the world (by us I mean morbidly obese grocery store workers and other valueless people).
*******
*******
BUT
*******
*******
Tonight after a long shift at work I was about to walk out as usual without much hope to my house to sit alone in the slanted room (I'm making the story a little melodramatic). But then a girl I work with asked me to help with a recipe and supplies for a meal she was making for her boyfriend, and so we went around getting the groceries and talking and then we drove home (she followed me 'cause we live on the same street, and i drove crazily). I then realized, as I listened to Radiohead and waved goodbye, that I felt like a human being.
Obviously I'm not telling the story to predict a 'deeper' relationship (she's like 5 years younger than me and in a relationship, and I'm just a creepy deli guy). But the reason I wrote it was because it was an example of someone just treating me like a human being, like my opinion was at all important, and that I could contribute something.
Anyway, that's my pathetically boring post you've wasted your time reading. But sometimes I wonder what life would be like to always feel like a human. Gah, all this introspection - blame St. Augustine and his Confessions, he started this Western philosophical phenomenon. Blogs are totally a result of him.
We have our extended family visiting our house this week (all the Mennonite Brethren folks). I used to be able to talk with my uncles and aunts about theology and my future as a preacher. But now that I'm of the 'peculiar Roman Catholick religion' (as Rabbie Burns would've said - ), no one asks me about anything or talks hopefully about my future.
In that same Roman faith there is a philosophy that is popular among the Pontiffs. It's the idea of "the full human person" or "the intrinsic dignity of the human person". It's the idea(l) that everyone who is born has intrinsic worth and value just because they are in existence. It's what Seneca and St. Thomas Aquinas said when they gave us the choice between "Being a beast, or being a human". The modern neo-Darwinian socialist materialist positivist atheism of today seems to treat us like we're beasts rated on our ability to contribute to the world (by us I mean morbidly obese grocery store workers and other valueless people).
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Tonight after a long shift at work I was about to walk out as usual without much hope to my house to sit alone in the slanted room (I'm making the story a little melodramatic). But then a girl I work with asked me to help with a recipe and supplies for a meal she was making for her boyfriend, and so we went around getting the groceries and talking and then we drove home (she followed me 'cause we live on the same street, and i drove crazily). I then realized, as I listened to Radiohead and waved goodbye, that I felt like a human being.
Obviously I'm not telling the story to predict a 'deeper' relationship (she's like 5 years younger than me and in a relationship, and I'm just a creepy deli guy). But the reason I wrote it was because it was an example of someone just treating me like a human being, like my opinion was at all important, and that I could contribute something.
Anyway, that's my pathetically boring post you've wasted your time reading. But sometimes I wonder what life would be like to always feel like a human. Gah, all this introspection - blame St. Augustine and his Confessions, he started this Western philosophical phenomenon. Blogs are totally a result of him.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
A Good Weekend, Existentialism, and Chocolate Chips
I figured I should put something up that wasn't depressing.
Yesterday night I went to see Night at the Museum 2 because my mom forced me to go with her, but to my amazement, it was actually really good. Amy Adams captured the historical amelia very well. Ben Stiller was very Jewish and quite funny. It had alot of funny things in it and history.
Then today I had a delicious cookie. I think it was the best cookie I've ever had in my life, it was an existential experience filled with meaning I can no yet fully comprehend. It was chocolate chip.
I'm now sitting anxiously writing down a list of my sins as I do an examination of conscience. I haven't been to confession for 6 weeks. I'm hoping I am absolved without a hitch - I know I will be - but still there's always the anxiety coupled with exhilaration when you experience the sacrament of Penance, like the prodigal son, I go with no expectations, hoping the father will forgive me, and then experience the joy of absolution (hopefully - unless i've committed a very serious sin which then has to go to Rome to be dealt with - yes they actually do that >.< ). After all this I'm going to dinner at my brothers, and right now I'm passing time reading St. Thomas More's Utopia which I'm finding quite Socialistic to my enjoyment.
Yesterday night I went to see Night at the Museum 2 because my mom forced me to go with her, but to my amazement, it was actually really good. Amy Adams captured the historical amelia very well. Ben Stiller was very Jewish and quite funny. It had alot of funny things in it and history.
Then today I had a delicious cookie. I think it was the best cookie I've ever had in my life, it was an existential experience filled with meaning I can no yet fully comprehend. It was chocolate chip.
I'm now sitting anxiously writing down a list of my sins as I do an examination of conscience. I haven't been to confession for 6 weeks. I'm hoping I am absolved without a hitch - I know I will be - but still there's always the anxiety coupled with exhilaration when you experience the sacrament of Penance, like the prodigal son, I go with no expectations, hoping the father will forgive me, and then experience the joy of absolution (hopefully - unless i've committed a very serious sin which then has to go to Rome to be dealt with - yes they actually do that >.< ). After all this I'm going to dinner at my brothers, and right now I'm passing time reading St. Thomas More's Utopia which I'm finding quite Socialistic to my enjoyment.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Remembering I'm A Creature
It's amazing how life works. I had just written in a previous blog post that I was super depressed and lonely as a human, and that I wished to be like God, and to be removed from relationships and just have peace in solitude. Little did I know what I would be shown next....
So I've been waiting for hours for a phone call, so I decided that in my depression I would pick up a theology book. I started reading one of my favourite authors thoughts on the Garden of Eden and Original Sin and the Human Condition.
"at the very heart of sin lies human beings' denial of their creatureliness, inasmuch as they refuse to accept the standard and limitations that are implicit in it [ie. Moral Law]. They do not want to be creatures, do not want to be subject to a standard, do not want to be dependent. They consider their dependence on God's creative love to be an imposition from without. But that is what slavery is, and from slavery one must free oneself. Thus human beings themselves want to be God."
This perfectly summarized my situation psychologically, strangely enough he had me pinned. But wait there's more!
"Human beings who consider dependence on the highest love as slaver and who try to deny the truth about themselves, which is their creatureliness, do not free themselves; they destroy truth and love. They do not make themselves gods, which, in fact, they cannot do, but rather caricatures, pseudogods, slaves of their own abilities, which then drag them down. ... sin is, in its essence, a renunciation of the truth."
It's the Christian thesis that man is man, not God, cannot be God and will always be at unease while he is trying it. Real peace comes from submission to God which is submission to truth. We want to be alone and independent and autonomous, but the theologian goes on to show how original sin makes this impossible.
"all the sins of history are interlinked....no human being is closed in upon himself or herself and that no one can live of or for himself or herself alone. We receive our life not only at the moment of birth but every day from without - from others who are not ourselves but who nonetheless somehow pertain to us. Human beings have their selves not only in themselves but also outside of themselves: they live in those whom they love and in those who love them and to whom they are present. Human beings are relational, and they possess their lives - themselves - only by way of relationship. I alone am not myself, but only in and with you am I myself. To be truly a human being means to be related in love, to be of and for. But sin means the damaging or destruction of relationality. Sin is a rejection of relationality because it wants to make the human being a god."
So in short he's saying that since Eden, humans have wanted to be independent, masters of their fate, gods, but that it is impossible, and that human beings are actually not fulfilling their purpose in such endeavours, and that on the contrary, to be relational is to be human. This goes against all of our Western Individualism.
He then summarizes our experience of original sin by saying that:
"At the very moment when a person begins human existence, which is a good, he or she is confronted by a sin-damaged world. Each of us enters into a situation in which relationality has been hurt...Sin pursuess the human being, and he or she capitulates to it."
So our whole lives we experience this relational damage and we develop around it (capitulate to it).
"But from this it is also clear that human beings alone cannot save themselves. Their innate error is precisely that they want to do this by themselves. We can only be saved - that is, be free and true - when we stop wanting to be God and renounce the madness of autonomy and self-sufficiency. We can only be saved - that is, become ourselves - when we engage in the proper relationship. But our interpersonal relationships occur in the context of our utter creatureliness, and it is there that the damage lies. Since the relationship with Creation has been damaged, only the Creator himself can be our savior. We can be saved only when he from whom we have cut ourselves off takes the initiative with us and stretches out his hand to us. Only being loved is being saved, and only God's love can purify damaged human love and radically re-establish the network of relationships that have suffered from alienation."
So basically, we have to go back to our original purpose, to be slaves to God as it were, to be dependent on our Creator. But the constant effects of sin make us want to be alone, do things our own way, by ourselves. Even society - Liberalism - is built on the proposition of human freedom and autonomy.
He then moves on to describe Christ:
"Jesus Christ goes Adam's route, but in reverse. In contrast to Adam he is really "like God". But this being like God, this similarity to God, is being a Son, and hence it is totally relational. "I do nothing on my own authority" (Jn 8:28). Therefore the one who is truly like God does not hold graspingly to his autonomy, to the limitlessness of his ability and his willing. He does the contrary: he becomes completely dependent; he becomes a slave. Because he does not go the route of power but that of love...The cross, the place of his obedience, is the true tree of life. Christ is the antitype of the serpent...The cross is the tree of life, now approachable. By his Passion, Christ, as it were, removed the fiery sword, passed through the fire, and erected the cross as the true pole of the earth, by which it is itself once more set aright. Therefore the Eucharist, as the presence of the cross, is the abiding tree of life, which is ever in our midst and ever invites us to take the fruit of true life. This means that the Eucharist can never merely be a kind of community builder. To receive it, to eat of the tree of life, means to receive the crucified Lord and consequently to accept the parameters of his life, his obedience, his "yes", the standard of our creatureliness. It means to accept the love of God, which is our truth - that dependeence on God which is no more an imposition from without than is the Son's sonship. It is precisely this dependence that is freedom, because it is truth and love.
May this Lent help us to free ourselves from our refusals and our doubt concerning God's covenant, from our rejection of our limitations and from the lie of our autonomy. May it direct us to the tree of life, which is our standard and our hope."
- Pope Benedict XVI "Sin and Salvation"
Yes it was the Pope, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who wrote these words. To me it was absolutely amazing a Godsend. I hope you can get it, and that some of the wonder I feel about it all, reaches you as well.
May you be dependent on God.
So I've been waiting for hours for a phone call, so I decided that in my depression I would pick up a theology book. I started reading one of my favourite authors thoughts on the Garden of Eden and Original Sin and the Human Condition.
"at the very heart of sin lies human beings' denial of their creatureliness, inasmuch as they refuse to accept the standard and limitations that are implicit in it [ie. Moral Law]. They do not want to be creatures, do not want to be subject to a standard, do not want to be dependent. They consider their dependence on God's creative love to be an imposition from without. But that is what slavery is, and from slavery one must free oneself. Thus human beings themselves want to be God."
This perfectly summarized my situation psychologically, strangely enough he had me pinned. But wait there's more!
"Human beings who consider dependence on the highest love as slaver and who try to deny the truth about themselves, which is their creatureliness, do not free themselves; they destroy truth and love. They do not make themselves gods, which, in fact, they cannot do, but rather caricatures, pseudogods, slaves of their own abilities, which then drag them down. ... sin is, in its essence, a renunciation of the truth."
It's the Christian thesis that man is man, not God, cannot be God and will always be at unease while he is trying it. Real peace comes from submission to God which is submission to truth. We want to be alone and independent and autonomous, but the theologian goes on to show how original sin makes this impossible.
"all the sins of history are interlinked....no human being is closed in upon himself or herself and that no one can live of or for himself or herself alone. We receive our life not only at the moment of birth but every day from without - from others who are not ourselves but who nonetheless somehow pertain to us. Human beings have their selves not only in themselves but also outside of themselves: they live in those whom they love and in those who love them and to whom they are present. Human beings are relational, and they possess their lives - themselves - only by way of relationship. I alone am not myself, but only in and with you am I myself. To be truly a human being means to be related in love, to be of and for. But sin means the damaging or destruction of relationality. Sin is a rejection of relationality because it wants to make the human being a god."
So in short he's saying that since Eden, humans have wanted to be independent, masters of their fate, gods, but that it is impossible, and that human beings are actually not fulfilling their purpose in such endeavours, and that on the contrary, to be relational is to be human. This goes against all of our Western Individualism.
He then summarizes our experience of original sin by saying that:
"At the very moment when a person begins human existence, which is a good, he or she is confronted by a sin-damaged world. Each of us enters into a situation in which relationality has been hurt...Sin pursuess the human being, and he or she capitulates to it."
So our whole lives we experience this relational damage and we develop around it (capitulate to it).
"But from this it is also clear that human beings alone cannot save themselves. Their innate error is precisely that they want to do this by themselves. We can only be saved - that is, be free and true - when we stop wanting to be God and renounce the madness of autonomy and self-sufficiency. We can only be saved - that is, become ourselves - when we engage in the proper relationship. But our interpersonal relationships occur in the context of our utter creatureliness, and it is there that the damage lies. Since the relationship with Creation has been damaged, only the Creator himself can be our savior. We can be saved only when he from whom we have cut ourselves off takes the initiative with us and stretches out his hand to us. Only being loved is being saved, and only God's love can purify damaged human love and radically re-establish the network of relationships that have suffered from alienation."
So basically, we have to go back to our original purpose, to be slaves to God as it were, to be dependent on our Creator. But the constant effects of sin make us want to be alone, do things our own way, by ourselves. Even society - Liberalism - is built on the proposition of human freedom and autonomy.
He then moves on to describe Christ:
"Jesus Christ goes Adam's route, but in reverse. In contrast to Adam he is really "like God". But this being like God, this similarity to God, is being a Son, and hence it is totally relational. "I do nothing on my own authority" (Jn 8:28). Therefore the one who is truly like God does not hold graspingly to his autonomy, to the limitlessness of his ability and his willing. He does the contrary: he becomes completely dependent; he becomes a slave. Because he does not go the route of power but that of love...The cross, the place of his obedience, is the true tree of life. Christ is the antitype of the serpent...The cross is the tree of life, now approachable. By his Passion, Christ, as it were, removed the fiery sword, passed through the fire, and erected the cross as the true pole of the earth, by which it is itself once more set aright. Therefore the Eucharist, as the presence of the cross, is the abiding tree of life, which is ever in our midst and ever invites us to take the fruit of true life. This means that the Eucharist can never merely be a kind of community builder. To receive it, to eat of the tree of life, means to receive the crucified Lord and consequently to accept the parameters of his life, his obedience, his "yes", the standard of our creatureliness. It means to accept the love of God, which is our truth - that dependeence on God which is no more an imposition from without than is the Son's sonship. It is precisely this dependence that is freedom, because it is truth and love.
May this Lent help us to free ourselves from our refusals and our doubt concerning God's covenant, from our rejection of our limitations and from the lie of our autonomy. May it direct us to the tree of life, which is our standard and our hope."
- Pope Benedict XVI "Sin and Salvation"
Yes it was the Pope, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who wrote these words. To me it was absolutely amazing a Godsend. I hope you can get it, and that some of the wonder I feel about it all, reaches you as well.
May you be dependent on God.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Everyday
"God himself took a day to rest in, and a good man's grave is his Sabbath." -John Donne
People always ask me what's "new and exciting" - as a student of History and Theology, they should ask me "what's old and exciting" but I doubt they'll ever start that, modern man is obsessed with the Via Moderna, and I'm choosing to blame Luther for that. Anyway, as I thought about my life I thought I might as well just write down an archetypal day of my life /Platonic Form of Andrew's life, and then it will be easy to imagine what I do, in case anyone is wondering.
Waking:
Normally I wake up immediately worrying about, or complaining about, something. But I've noticed that in a strange way it comes from optimism, I'm always looking for something to hope for, something to move onto. Then I'm struck by the harsh reality of the present, the most difficult of places for me to reside in. I find I innately put all the faillures of the past and all the worries of the future onto all the iniquities of the present. I wake up each day I stumble over to the mirror, I feel frustrated, as if I was put at the end of a starting line in the race of life. The only way I move on is to remember that everyone is running a meaningless race, and I don't have to win, I don't even have to compete, I can just walk. So I force myself to remember thoughts like:
'Andrew you don't seem to think you are good enough today, not thin enough, too lustful, etc. On the day that you die, you will not be good enough. So get over it. You may die today, so calm down and just start walking. "death smiles at us all, all man can do is smile back" (Gladiator). Live in the realm of today, slowly practice the virtues, fear God, experience Eudaimonea'
'none of the affairs of man are large enough for great anxiety' - Plato's Republic
or Psalm 139
or some Aristotle about being virtuous
Then I can move onto the rest of the day.
Work:
I always pray before work because as they say there are no atheists in foxholes, so I feel about work. I've always hated and feared work, and anytime someone mentions jobs, employment, or work, I think of the line "Imagine a Boot Stomping on a Human Face Forever" from Orwell's 1984. I hope that changes someday. Anyway, I just try to survive at work.
Peace/Shalom:
Usually on the drive home as I listen to a piece of classical music, or have my hand out the window, or see a really green tree or flower, I feel at peace. The tender reassurance that I am not that important, that I will end, and flowers and music and breezes will continue and overshadow all the dark schemes of human work which destroy every natural bliss.
Friends:
If I have the emotional stamina after the rest of the day, I'll call my friends, or check my email. Recently it's been really hard for me to be able to get through everything, so I've been neglecting this area. My friend is getting married in a week, I haven't bought him anything, I haven't sent him anythign, just told him I can't fly out for his wedding. I just can't deal with it right now, I love and support him, but I have a low emotional tolerance or something.
Reading/Tolkien/World of Warcraft:
This is the part of the day I yearn for most because I can't be at shalom all the time, if I could, I would yearn for that, but such is the reality of life. These activities are the escape from the rest of existence and yet in them I feel more alive than in anything else during morning or work. I can be somewhere else for these precious hours, one day work and mornings will consume all of this time and I'll be forced to live merely for the temporary daily moments of peace and Church.
Church/Mass:
This is the 3rd best time of the day/week - Sorry God - where I arrive early in the large Cathedral and feel all my guilt build up from over the week as I look at the crucifix and remember that God's most defining moment was pain and death and that this was the path he chose for us, and in that truth, I too can live and die. I haven't been able to take the Eucharist recently because I can't get to confession (I work saturdays and priests seem to only allow confessions on saturdays in our diocese), but when I do take communion, it's always an awesome experience. I enjoy the Mass because it reminds me that whatever goodness I have comes not from me as an individual but from me as a member of Christ's body, from the group, the Church of Christ (Now confusingly monikered the Roman Catholic Church - it's a long story). I usually find the same peace here, in prayer, on my knees before the mysteriously present God, the Mysterium Tremendum. But then the idiotic priest or the uneducated Catholic says something dumb and gets me angry for the rest of the day.
Evening:
When I get to my room at night I'll cross myself and pray the Pater Noster (Our Father), Ave Maria (Hail Mary), and the Jesus Prayer (Domine Iesu Christe) in latin and then read some Harry Potter and go to sleep. I usually have nightmares, and in the last month I've woken up screaming twice.
Then the whole thing starts over again.
"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money'. Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin." - Epistle of St. James, Chapter 4, Verses 13 to 17
I love this passage, it reminds me that I have to live today, without boasting, remember that I am but a mist, and to do the right thing, this is the path to fulfillment and life everlasting.
People always ask me what's "new and exciting" - as a student of History and Theology, they should ask me "what's old and exciting" but I doubt they'll ever start that, modern man is obsessed with the Via Moderna, and I'm choosing to blame Luther for that. Anyway, as I thought about my life I thought I might as well just write down an archetypal day of my life /Platonic Form of Andrew's life, and then it will be easy to imagine what I do, in case anyone is wondering.
Waking:
Normally I wake up immediately worrying about, or complaining about, something. But I've noticed that in a strange way it comes from optimism, I'm always looking for something to hope for, something to move onto. Then I'm struck by the harsh reality of the present, the most difficult of places for me to reside in. I find I innately put all the faillures of the past and all the worries of the future onto all the iniquities of the present. I wake up each day I stumble over to the mirror, I feel frustrated, as if I was put at the end of a starting line in the race of life. The only way I move on is to remember that everyone is running a meaningless race, and I don't have to win, I don't even have to compete, I can just walk. So I force myself to remember thoughts like:
'Andrew you don't seem to think you are good enough today, not thin enough, too lustful, etc. On the day that you die, you will not be good enough. So get over it. You may die today, so calm down and just start walking. "death smiles at us all, all man can do is smile back" (Gladiator). Live in the realm of today, slowly practice the virtues, fear God, experience Eudaimonea'
'none of the affairs of man are large enough for great anxiety' - Plato's Republic
or Psalm 139
or some Aristotle about being virtuous
Then I can move onto the rest of the day.
Work:
I always pray before work because as they say there are no atheists in foxholes, so I feel about work. I've always hated and feared work, and anytime someone mentions jobs, employment, or work, I think of the line "Imagine a Boot Stomping on a Human Face Forever" from Orwell's 1984. I hope that changes someday. Anyway, I just try to survive at work.
Peace/Shalom:
Usually on the drive home as I listen to a piece of classical music, or have my hand out the window, or see a really green tree or flower, I feel at peace. The tender reassurance that I am not that important, that I will end, and flowers and music and breezes will continue and overshadow all the dark schemes of human work which destroy every natural bliss.
Friends:
If I have the emotional stamina after the rest of the day, I'll call my friends, or check my email. Recently it's been really hard for me to be able to get through everything, so I've been neglecting this area. My friend is getting married in a week, I haven't bought him anything, I haven't sent him anythign, just told him I can't fly out for his wedding. I just can't deal with it right now, I love and support him, but I have a low emotional tolerance or something.
Reading/Tolkien/World of Warcraft:
This is the part of the day I yearn for most because I can't be at shalom all the time, if I could, I would yearn for that, but such is the reality of life. These activities are the escape from the rest of existence and yet in them I feel more alive than in anything else during morning or work. I can be somewhere else for these precious hours, one day work and mornings will consume all of this time and I'll be forced to live merely for the temporary daily moments of peace and Church.
Church/Mass:
This is the 3rd best time of the day/week - Sorry God - where I arrive early in the large Cathedral and feel all my guilt build up from over the week as I look at the crucifix and remember that God's most defining moment was pain and death and that this was the path he chose for us, and in that truth, I too can live and die. I haven't been able to take the Eucharist recently because I can't get to confession (I work saturdays and priests seem to only allow confessions on saturdays in our diocese), but when I do take communion, it's always an awesome experience. I enjoy the Mass because it reminds me that whatever goodness I have comes not from me as an individual but from me as a member of Christ's body, from the group, the Church of Christ (Now confusingly monikered the Roman Catholic Church - it's a long story). I usually find the same peace here, in prayer, on my knees before the mysteriously present God, the Mysterium Tremendum. But then the idiotic priest or the uneducated Catholic says something dumb and gets me angry for the rest of the day.
Evening:
When I get to my room at night I'll cross myself and pray the Pater Noster (Our Father), Ave Maria (Hail Mary), and the Jesus Prayer (Domine Iesu Christe) in latin and then read some Harry Potter and go to sleep. I usually have nightmares, and in the last month I've woken up screaming twice.
Then the whole thing starts over again.
"Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money'. Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin." - Epistle of St. James, Chapter 4, Verses 13 to 17
I love this passage, it reminds me that I have to live today, without boasting, remember that I am but a mist, and to do the right thing, this is the path to fulfillment and life everlasting.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Filling the Void with Rum, Porn, and Warcraft
lol I thought that blog title would grab your attention, yes both of you reading this.
I just realized that I haven't had a girlfriend since August, it's coming up to a year now, but I've tried not to think about my utter loneliness. I've enjoyed the bachelor life and I'm enjoying it now by serving only myself - one of my favourite things to do. But I've been noticing more and more often how much of a void there's been in my life.
First of all, to get it out of the way, I've always been told that everyone has a God-Shaped hole in their heart which only Jesus can fill, well I've filled that with Jesus and his Eucharistic presence. So if there's a check list for my life, God could be checked off. But Aristotle taught me something else, that life is really about finding Eudaimonea - Happiness - Fulfillment, and while I'm obligated to say God is enough, blah, etc, in all honesty, sometimes he isn't. Leonard Cohen once said he believed two things about God - 1) that he is alwasy imminently and transcendently present in every moment of your life, and 2) that we become so used to this that sometimes we feel an incomprehensible chasm between us and God. I agree with his Zen Judaism there.
But back to the main theme. Just a warning that this is probably the most embarrassing thing i've put on my blog, and if my co-workers read this, please don't think less of me. But I work with beautiful, young, girls, who would never spend evenings with me unless obligated by the job and money, etc. Anyway, we ran out of paper towels tonight so they started using my back to wipe their hands on. It was basically a derogatory thing which was pretty simple and non-sexual, just like someone giving you a back rub. The creepy thing was how good it felt. Feel free to leave the blog now if you're grossed out at the thought of this, just click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfH-pzXWHw
The weird thing was just that a girl talking to me tonight and rubbing my back made me feel like a human again, it was like some kind of relational/human void was being filled. If you're struggling to get what i mean just think of every book Donald Miller ever wrote. That's what I mean.
As I've been going to a Protestant Counselor for a while now trying to sort out my addictions and I'm amazed at how many things I try to fill the voids in my life with. I feel like a junkie trying to go from one high to the next. I've been doing phenomenally better recently with all these things, but at the same time it makes it worse when it all comes back.
So tonight, now that i'm home I don't know what to do, there's one person I call whenever I get depressed (it's the last person I kissed as well) but I don't know if she feels like dealing with me tonight. So I'm just going to finish my rum and coke, and play some world of warcraft. I wish I were in the middle ages so that I could go to Vespers and take the Eucharist. But I'll have to wait till sunday. I hate that I can't go to confession except on saturdays either, and I work saturdays. Christ's Church sucks at times, but is still really awesome.
Shalom to you, may the correct things fill the voids in your life.
I just realized that I haven't had a girlfriend since August, it's coming up to a year now, but I've tried not to think about my utter loneliness. I've enjoyed the bachelor life and I'm enjoying it now by serving only myself - one of my favourite things to do. But I've been noticing more and more often how much of a void there's been in my life.
First of all, to get it out of the way, I've always been told that everyone has a God-Shaped hole in their heart which only Jesus can fill, well I've filled that with Jesus and his Eucharistic presence. So if there's a check list for my life, God could be checked off. But Aristotle taught me something else, that life is really about finding Eudaimonea - Happiness - Fulfillment, and while I'm obligated to say God is enough, blah, etc, in all honesty, sometimes he isn't. Leonard Cohen once said he believed two things about God - 1) that he is alwasy imminently and transcendently present in every moment of your life, and 2) that we become so used to this that sometimes we feel an incomprehensible chasm between us and God. I agree with his Zen Judaism there.
But back to the main theme. Just a warning that this is probably the most embarrassing thing i've put on my blog, and if my co-workers read this, please don't think less of me. But I work with beautiful, young, girls, who would never spend evenings with me unless obligated by the job and money, etc. Anyway, we ran out of paper towels tonight so they started using my back to wipe their hands on. It was basically a derogatory thing which was pretty simple and non-sexual, just like someone giving you a back rub. The creepy thing was how good it felt. Feel free to leave the blog now if you're grossed out at the thought of this, just click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJfH-pzXWHw
The weird thing was just that a girl talking to me tonight and rubbing my back made me feel like a human again, it was like some kind of relational/human void was being filled. If you're struggling to get what i mean just think of every book Donald Miller ever wrote. That's what I mean.
As I've been going to a Protestant Counselor for a while now trying to sort out my addictions and I'm amazed at how many things I try to fill the voids in my life with. I feel like a junkie trying to go from one high to the next. I've been doing phenomenally better recently with all these things, but at the same time it makes it worse when it all comes back.
So tonight, now that i'm home I don't know what to do, there's one person I call whenever I get depressed (it's the last person I kissed as well) but I don't know if she feels like dealing with me tonight. So I'm just going to finish my rum and coke, and play some world of warcraft. I wish I were in the middle ages so that I could go to Vespers and take the Eucharist. But I'll have to wait till sunday. I hate that I can't go to confession except on saturdays either, and I work saturdays. Christ's Church sucks at times, but is still really awesome.
Shalom to you, may the correct things fill the voids in your life.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Unfathomed Sorrow and Music Great and Terrible
"He governs the flowing of all waters, and the ebbing, the courses of all rivers and the replenishment of springs, the distilling of all dews and rain in every land beneath the sky. In the deep places, He gives thought to music great and terrible; and the echo of that music runs through all the veins of the world in sorrow and in joy; for if joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomed at the foundations of the Earth" - J.R.R. Tolkien in The Silmarillion, describing the god/demi-god of the sea: Ulmo.
"Melkor hated the Sea, for he could not subdue it." - Silmarillion (Melkor was a god who rebelled against the One God ie, the Satan figure).
I like this description of the ocean and the insights Tolkien creates about the divine, that from the same springs joy and unfathomed sorrow arise. A biographer of Tolkien once said that after his mother and father's deaths, for John (Tolkien) the crucifix remained the prime symbol of human existence, and reminded him that no life could occur without suffering, for God to become man it meant suffering, and so even at the moment of greatest victory - Christ's victory on the cross - there always remains sorrow.
It reminds me of a story of a man whose son had died long before him as a young man. The Author wrote that perhaps the scriptures say that no one can look into the face of God and live because he is so full of sorrow. We would see the infinite sadness and die.
For some reason I love that image. It's terrible - I really don't know why - but it reminds me of Jurgen Moltmann's comment that "A God who cannot suffer is poorer than any human being".
Theologically it's untenable, and I don't really believe it, but in my heart I tend to enjoy the anthropormism of such thoughts, they reflect the OT well when it says that "God regretted that he made man" etc. I think that emotion and suffering give us meaning in everyday life.
But I like Tolkien's writing because it gives you a sense of the greatness, the glory, the majesty, the Mysterium Tremendum of the entire Universe and the incomprehensibility of the Almighty, and the pettiness of humanity. About how man always wants to conquer, to fight for significance, but how much bigger the forces are around him.
Tolkien gets me through alot, he's one of my favourite authors, and Roman Catholics.
I love his phrases like "music great and terrible" - it reminds me of listening to classical music on a piano in a thunderstorm, or sitting in a small room in my house late at night listening to CBC radio and an opera or a symphony or a Nocturne.
You can get through life when it is great and terrible, it's monotony that kills us.
"Melkor hated the Sea, for he could not subdue it." - Silmarillion (Melkor was a god who rebelled against the One God ie, the Satan figure).
I like this description of the ocean and the insights Tolkien creates about the divine, that from the same springs joy and unfathomed sorrow arise. A biographer of Tolkien once said that after his mother and father's deaths, for John (Tolkien) the crucifix remained the prime symbol of human existence, and reminded him that no life could occur without suffering, for God to become man it meant suffering, and so even at the moment of greatest victory - Christ's victory on the cross - there always remains sorrow.
It reminds me of a story of a man whose son had died long before him as a young man. The Author wrote that perhaps the scriptures say that no one can look into the face of God and live because he is so full of sorrow. We would see the infinite sadness and die.
For some reason I love that image. It's terrible - I really don't know why - but it reminds me of Jurgen Moltmann's comment that "A God who cannot suffer is poorer than any human being".
Theologically it's untenable, and I don't really believe it, but in my heart I tend to enjoy the anthropormism of such thoughts, they reflect the OT well when it says that "God regretted that he made man" etc. I think that emotion and suffering give us meaning in everyday life.
But I like Tolkien's writing because it gives you a sense of the greatness, the glory, the majesty, the Mysterium Tremendum of the entire Universe and the incomprehensibility of the Almighty, and the pettiness of humanity. About how man always wants to conquer, to fight for significance, but how much bigger the forces are around him.
Tolkien gets me through alot, he's one of my favourite authors, and Roman Catholics.
I love his phrases like "music great and terrible" - it reminds me of listening to classical music on a piano in a thunderstorm, or sitting in a small room in my house late at night listening to CBC radio and an opera or a symphony or a Nocturne.
You can get through life when it is great and terrible, it's monotony that kills us.
I love the term mysterium tremendum it comes from Rudolf Otto's The Idea of the Holy (which I really want to read) but I found a quote from his book that reminds me of all that I've been trying to say, he defines the great mystery as:
"The wholly other, that which is quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible and the familiar, which . . . fills the mind with blank wonder and astonishment."
"The wholly other, that which is quite beyond the sphere of the usual, the intelligible and the familiar, which . . . fills the mind with blank wonder and astonishment."
He says when people think about God, grace, salvation, etc the person,
"feels a something which captivates and transports him with a strange ravishment, rising often to the pitch of dizzying intoxication"
That's my spirituality I think, that's why I love the stars, that's why I love reading the Pantheists and Deists and Enlightenment philosophers, that's why I love Tolkien.
"Down below the broad, roaring waves of the sea break against the deep foundation of the rock. But high above the mountain, the sea, and the peaks of rock the eternal ornamentation blooms silently from the dark depths of the universe." - Rudolf Otto
Friday, February 13, 2009
Integrity and St. Thomas More - A Man For All Seasons
After finishing an essay last night, I picked up a book my mom gave me to read. It was a play by Robert Bolt called "A Man For All Seasons" and tells the story of Sir/St. Thomas More, Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor who remained a devout Catholic and refused to take the Act of Supremacy (http://www.britainexpress.com/History/tudor/supremacy-henry-text.htm). The oath means admitting that Henry's marriage to Anne Bolynne is valid and that Henry is the Supreme Head of the Church in England. More refuses because the Pope and Christian law state the contrary ('what God has brought together let no man separate', etc).
~
The whole theme of the play was "everyone has a price" and you gradually see every character get bought off into either submitting to the king and saying the oath, while not really believing it, or betraying their friends for money. In the end the story revolves around Thomas who refuses to say anything at all about the marriage or the Church of England and uses his silence as his legal defence.
It's interesting that the play mentions how even though More is silent, his morality and firm conviction and refusal to sell out, actually bring pain to King Henry VIII and he orders him to be dragged to the tower until he officially committs treason. But More is a master of English law and gets out of it every time until finally with no evidence, they have a trial and sentence him to execution anyway. His own friends who he was helping out in the beginning of the play end up being those who witness against him and sentence him to death. It's interesting in the end because Thomas was so committed to following his conscience that everyone thought he was a fool and should just give in. At one point, his friend the Duke of Norfolk, shows up and displays a list of all his friends and everyone in England who've all signed the Act of Supremacy and Norfolk urges him to sign it, and I love how More responds:
Norfolk: I don't know whether the marriage was lawful or not. But damn it, Thomas look at those names... You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?
It's interesting that the play mentions how even though More is silent, his morality and firm conviction and refusal to sell out, actually bring pain to King Henry VIII and he orders him to be dragged to the tower until he officially committs treason. But More is a master of English law and gets out of it every time until finally with no evidence, they have a trial and sentence him to execution anyway. His own friends who he was helping out in the beginning of the play end up being those who witness against him and sentence him to death. It's interesting in the end because Thomas was so committed to following his conscience that everyone thought he was a fool and should just give in. At one point, his friend the Duke of Norfolk, shows up and displays a list of all his friends and everyone in England who've all signed the Act of Supremacy and Norfolk urges him to sign it, and I love how More responds:
Norfolk: I don't know whether the marriage was lawful or not. But damn it, Thomas look at those names... You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?
More (moved): And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?
Cranmer: So those of us whose names are there are damned, Sir Thomas?
More: I don't know, Your Grace. I have no window to look into another man's conscience. I condemn no one
~~
I like that More doesn't even play the saintly moral high ground card here, he just says that he refuses to go against his conscience. He says later when his daughter asks why he stays in the Tower of London (jail) instead of just mindlessly signing the Act of Supremacy and coming home. She doesn't understand why he must suffer to be a hero. More responds:
~~~
"If we lived in a State where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us good, and greed would make us saintly, And we'd live like animals or angels in the happy land that needs no heroes. But since in fact we see that avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and stupidity commonly profit far beyond humility, chastity, fortitude, justice and thought, and have to choose, to be human at all...why then perhaps we must stand fast a little - even at the risk of being heroes" (p 84)
~~~~
In the end of his trial, once he knows it's been rigged, Sir Thomas says:
"What you have hunted me for is not my actions, but the thoughts of my heart. It is a long road you have opened. For first men will disclaim their hearts and presently they will have no hearts. God help the people whose Statesmen walk your road" (p 95)
"What you have hunted me for is not my actions, but the thoughts of my heart. It is a long road you have opened. For first men will disclaim their hearts and presently they will have no hearts. God help the people whose Statesmen walk your road" (p 95)
The movie V for Vendetta describes Integrity as that last inch which no one can take from you. Even though the play isn't literally true, the events are and I hope that I might one day have the conscience and integrity that St. Thomas More had.
I wrote to a friend the other day "I would pray that God lets you know what's right, in my case my conscience has always been clear, I've never had to pray to know right from wrong, I've only had to pray for the grace to do what is right, and rarely have I chosen it". I think the conscience is an immense gift from God and I need to rule myself more by it than I do currently.
For the scene from the Tudors see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP-DYiJfw6g&feature=related
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Goodbye Nietzsche
The above pictured man is the kind hearted, G.K. Chesterton, Genius Extraordinaire, Defender of Christian Orthodoxy.
This is the super-fucked up Friedrich Nietzsche - The Hero of the Nazis, and all around Douchebag, scum of the earth.I was reading "Orthodoxy" by G.K. Chesterton today and it is AMAZING. He completely refutes the ideas of Nietzsche. I only wish someone would've told me about him sooner. I've been trying to come up with these arguments myself because I didn't think anyone else out-thought him in print at least. Wow, good freakin job G.K.
"Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, “beyond good and evil,” because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” or, “more evil than good and evil.” Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, “the purer man,” or “the happier man,” or “the sadder man,” for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says “the upper man,” or “over man,” a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being “higher,” do not know either." - Chesterton in Orthodoxy
He is destroying Nietzsche's claim that he is himself beyond this Christian view of good and evil, when Nietzche is really only establishing his own system of good and evil which he likes more. Every value he advances has no inherent value. Lust, violence, and the will to power are Nietzsche's ideal characteristics. But Why? Nietzsche isn't offering us anything new about humanity he's just trying to shock us. Amen Chesterton. Did I mention Chesterton was a Catholic? Booyah!
"Nietzsche, whom some are representing as a bold and strong thinker. No one will deny that he was a poetical and suggestive thinker; but he was quite the reverse of strong. He was not at all bold. He never put his own meaning before himself in bald abstract words: as did Aristotle and Calvin, and even Karl Marx, the hard, fearless men of thought. Nietzsche always escaped a question by a physical metaphor, like a cheery minor poet. He said, “beyond good and evil,” because he had not the courage to say, “more good than good and evil,” or, “more evil than good and evil.” Had he faced his thought without metaphors, he would have seen that it was nonsense. So, when he describes his hero, he does not dare to say, “the purer man,” or “the happier man,” or “the sadder man,” for all these are ideas; and ideas are alarming. He says “the upper man,” or “over man,” a physical metaphor from acrobats or alpine climbers. Nietzsche is truly a very timid thinker. He does not really know in the least what sort of man he wants evolution to produce. And if he does not know, certainly the ordinary evolutionists, who talk about things being “higher,” do not know either." - Chesterton in Orthodoxy
He is destroying Nietzsche's claim that he is himself beyond this Christian view of good and evil, when Nietzche is really only establishing his own system of good and evil which he likes more. Every value he advances has no inherent value. Lust, violence, and the will to power are Nietzsche's ideal characteristics. But Why? Nietzsche isn't offering us anything new about humanity he's just trying to shock us. Amen Chesterton. Did I mention Chesterton was a Catholic? Booyah!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Ethos
I'm starting a new plan for trying to change my life, it's to reorder my ethos - my whole life ethic a bit. I'm using texts from three different religions in as much as their creeds help me to live as a better man. Don't worry I'm not converting to anything else, I'm fine being a Catholic Christian. Here they are:
1. Buddhism: I find that the ethics of Buddhism are actually quite easy to reconcile with Christianity, their way of life is difficult much like Christianity's, but I find that while I disagree with their theology and much of their philosophy, the actual pragmatic morality/religion part, I do agree with, here it is:
Buddhist Eightfold Noble Path
i. Right View
ii. Right Intention
iii. Right Speech
iv. Right Action
v. Right Livelihood
vi. Right Effort
vii. Right Mindfulness
viii. Right Concentration
Jedi: thank God only about 2 people even know this blog exists, because shaping your life after Star Wars isn't really 'cool' in any sense of the word. I read the jedi creed the other day and found it to be a very good mantra, it's basicallly just western style buddhism, but I like it. You can also Christianize this by just switching 'The Force' with logos which is Plato's concept of God which St. John uses in chapter 1 of his gospel to describe Christ as the eternal divine omnipresent deity.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force (or logos).
Christian
“We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure. And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love.” - St. Paul, in Romans 5:35 (CEV)
God blesses those people
who depend only on him.
They belong to the kingdom
of heaven!
God blesses those people
who grieve.
They will find comfort!
God blesses those people
who are humble.
The earth will belong
to them!
God blesses those people
who want to obey him more than to eat or drink.
They will be given
what they want!
God blesses those people
who are merciful.
They will be treated
with mercy!
God blesses those people
whose hearts are pure.
They will see him!
God blesses those people
who make peace.
They will be called
his children!
God blesses those people
who are treated badly
for doing right.
They belong to the kingdom
of heaven.” – Lord Jesus Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount (CEV)
1. Buddhism: I find that the ethics of Buddhism are actually quite easy to reconcile with Christianity, their way of life is difficult much like Christianity's, but I find that while I disagree with their theology and much of their philosophy, the actual pragmatic morality/religion part, I do agree with, here it is:
Buddhist Eightfold Noble Path
i. Right View
ii. Right Intention
iii. Right Speech
iv. Right Action
v. Right Livelihood
vi. Right Effort
vii. Right Mindfulness
viii. Right Concentration
Jedi: thank God only about 2 people even know this blog exists, because shaping your life after Star Wars isn't really 'cool' in any sense of the word. I read the jedi creed the other day and found it to be a very good mantra, it's basicallly just western style buddhism, but I like it. You can also Christianize this by just switching 'The Force' with logos which is Plato's concept of God which St. John uses in chapter 1 of his gospel to describe Christ as the eternal divine omnipresent deity.
There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force (or logos).
Christian
“We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure. And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love.” - St. Paul, in Romans 5:35 (CEV)
God blesses those people
who depend only on him.
They belong to the kingdom
of heaven!
God blesses those people
who grieve.
They will find comfort!
God blesses those people
who are humble.
The earth will belong
to them!
God blesses those people
who want to obey him more than to eat or drink.
They will be given
what they want!
God blesses those people
who are merciful.
They will be treated
with mercy!
God blesses those people
whose hearts are pure.
They will see him!
God blesses those people
who make peace.
They will be called
his children!
God blesses those people
who are treated badly
for doing right.
They belong to the kingdom
of heaven.” – Lord Jesus Christ, in the Sermon on the Mount (CEV)
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