Something to live for…

ERNIUS: Gosh, it looks like most of the Oscars went to European actors this year.

BERTUS: Well, we've got to give the Europeans something to live for.

Wisdom from… [25 Feb 08]

ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA (185–253): God's way is an ascent

We might suppose a path pointed out by God would be a smooth and pleasant one, free of obstacles and requiring no effort from the traveler, but in fact God's way is an ascent, a tortuous and rugged climb. There can be no downhill road to virtue—it is uphill all the way, and the path is narrow and arduous. Listen also to the Lord's warning in the gospel: The way that leads to life, he says, is narrow and hard. Notice how close the agreement is between the gospel and the law. In the law the way of virtue is shown to be a tortuous climb; the gospels speak of the way that leads to life as narrow and hard. Is it not obvious then, even to the blind, that the law and the gospels were both written by one and the same Spirit?

And so the road they followed was a winding ascent, an ascent surmounted by a beacon. The ascent refers to works and the beacon to faith, so that we can see the great difficulty and laborious effort involved in both faith and works. Many are the temptations we shall meet and many the obstacles to faith that lie in store for us in our desire to pursue the things of God.
(Hom. in Exodo 5, 3-4: Edit. Maurist. 2, 145-146.)

Origen became head of the catechetical school of Alexandria and devoted his life to the study of scripture, leaving behind voluminous scriptural commentaries and syntheses, mostly dominated by the analogical exegesis.

ST AUGUSTINE: Temptations out of the Past

Lord, you command me to be continent. You have commanded me to abstain from concubinage, and in place of marriage itself––which you permit––you have counseled something better.

Since you granted this to me, it has been fulfilled even before I became a dispenser of your sacrament. Yet, in my memory, of which I have said many things, there still live images of such things as my former habits implanted there.
-- Confessions 10, 30

Prayer. Your hand, O God Almightly, is able to heal all the infirmities of my soul.
-- Confessions 10, 30

ST FRANCIS DE SALES:

It is a difficult thing to have an exact idea of one's goal, but it is likewise true that all of us must perfectly pinpoint the virtue we are aiming to acquire. However, if we cannot do this, we must not lose courage or get upset; we must get as close to the goal as possible, because even the saints did not succeed in doing any more than that. Only Our Lord and the virgin most holy fully succeeded.
(Spiritual Conferences IV; O. VI, pp. 59-60)

GK CHESTERTON:

NOTHING is important except the fate of the soul; and literature is only redeemed from an utter triviality, surpassing that of naughts and crosses, by the fact that it describes not the world around us, or the things on the retina of the eye, or the enormous irrelevancy of encyclopaedias, but some condition to which the human spirit can come.
(Introduction to ' The Old Curiosity Shop.')

Wisdom from… [20 & 21 Feb]

ST AUGUSTINE (354–430): Crucify ourselves

We are soon to celebrate the passion of our crucified Lord. It is therefore in keeping with our commitment to him that we should crucify ourselves by restraining the desires of the flesh. As the apostle says: You cannot belong to Christ Jesus unless you crucify all your self-indulgent passions and desires. Such is the cross upon which we Christians must continually hang, since our whole lives are beset by trials and temptations. Not for us, as long as we live, to be rid of those nails we read of in the psalm: Pierce my flesh with the nails of your fear.

Flesh means the desires of our lower nature; nails, the demands of God's justice and holiness. With these the fear of the Lord pierces our flesh and fastens us to the cross as an acceptable sacrifice to him. In a similar passage the apostle Paul appeals to us by the mercy of God to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
(Sermon 205, 1.)

As bishop of Hippo, Augustine became the most influential person of the Western Church and left many writings to posterity, ultimately being honored as the "Doctor of Grace".

ST PETER DAMIAN (1007–1072): The communion of saints

If those who believe in Christ are one, then through the mystery of the [eucharistic] sacrament the entire body is present where bodily eyes see but a single member. Solitude prevents no one from speaking in the plural; nor is it inappropriate for the multitude of believers to speak in the singular, for through the power of the Holy Spirit, who is present in each and fills all, it is clear that the solitude is full of people and the multitude forms a unity.

Our holy Fathers regarded this intimate relationship and communion of believers in Christ as so certain that they included it in the creed stating the Catholic faith, and commanded us frequently to call it to mind along with the other basic elements of Christian belief. For immediately after we say: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church," we add: "the communion of saints." Thus in the very act by which we bear witness to the God in whom we believe, we also affirm the communion that marks the Church which is one with him. For this communion of saints in the unity of faith is such that, because they believe in one God, are reborn in one baptism, and are strengthened by the one Holy Spirit, they are admitted, through the grace of adoption, into the one everlasting life.
(Sermo 9 de passione 2: PL 54, 343.)

As bishop of Ostia, Peter worked closely with eight popes as diplomat and legate. The number and range of his writings was considerable.

ST AUGUSTINE:

Hold Fast to the Love of God

Real love of God will not be in you if the love of the world prevails in you. Hold fast rather to the love of God, so that as God is eternal you too will live forever. For each of us is such as our love is. Do you love the world? Then you will be the earth. Do you love God? What shall I say? That you will be a god? I dare not say this on my own authority, and so let us hear Holy Scripture: "I have said: you are gods and all of you children of the Most High."
-- Sermon on John 2, 8

[We become what we worship. At the center of man's heart is not actually a throne for his own ego, but rather an empty throne for something, anything, perceivably higher than himself to which he may commit himself. The heart of man, as Calvin said, is a factory of idols. Or, as Bob Dylan put it, "You gotta serve somebody." It is true enough, of course, that one of our idols may be an image we project of ourselves, a superego to which we wish we could commit our normal ego, but this only reinforces the fact that there is an intrinsic gap between man's identity and his "teleological" submission to various idols. Self-mortification is, then, largely a matter of destroying the idols that clutter our hearts and lives. Humility is the ax that obliterates the ego of our own "better self" fabricated apart from the cruciform pattern of Christ Himself.

In any event here is a nice look at Dylan's influence in gospel music…based on the influence of the Gospel in Dylan.]

Prayer. Lord, teach me what I should teach, teach me what I should hold fast.
-- Letter 166, 10

Let the Better Love Take Over

There are two loves, the love of God and the love of the world. If the love of the world takes possession of you, there is no way for the love of God to enter into you. Let the love of the world take the second place, and let the love of God dwell in you. Let the better love take over.
-- Sermon on 1 John 2, 8

Prayer. O to love! to go and be lost to self! to reach God!
-- Sermon 159, 8

ST FRANCIS DE SALES:

"Happy the man who knows how to control zeal," says Saint Ambrose. Saint Bernard adds, "the devil will easily delude you if you neglect knowledge. Therefore, let your zeal be inflamed with charity, adorned with knowledge and established in constancy." True zeal is the child of charity, since it is its ardor. Therefore, like charity, it is patient and kind. It is without quarrelling, without hatred, without envy; it rejoices in the truth, The ardor of true zeal is like the hunter's: diligent, careful, active industrious, eager in pursuit, but without passion, anger, bad temper or vexation. Otherwise, hunting would not be such a popular sport. In like manner, the ardor of zeal must be stable, industrious, untiring and likeable. Completely different is false zeal: it is turbulent, troubled, insolent, arrogant, choleric, impetuous and unstable.
(T.L.G. Book 10, Ch. 16, pp. 189-190)

[As St. James says, "Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace" (James 3:13–18)]

The Holy Spirit gives us His advice through the words of the prince of the apostles, "Take great care to use your time well and make sure of your vocation through good works." [cf. 2 Pt 1:10] This warning must make us live in great fear and humility in whatever state we find ourselves, but at the same time we must raise our heart to the divine Goodness invoking His grace and His help and keeping our affection fixed on Him by means of frequent and fervent ejaculations.
(Sermons 58; O.X, pp. 259-260)

GK CHESTERTON:

NOW the reason why our fathers did not make marriage, in the middle-aged and static sense, the subject of their plays was a very simple one; it was that a play is a very bad place for discussing that topic. You cannot easily make a good drama out of the success or failure of a marriage, just as you could not make a good drama out of the growth of an oak-tree or the decay of an empire. As Polonius very reasonably observed, it is too long. A happy love-affair will make a drama simply because it is dramatic; it depends on an ultimate yes or no. But a happy marriage is not dramatic; perhaps it would be less happy if it were. The essence of a romantic heroine is that she asks herself an intense question; but the essence of a sensible wife is that she is much too sensible to ask herself any questions at all. All the things that make monogamy a success are in their nature undramatic things, the silent growth of an instinctive confidence, the common wounds and victories, the accumulation of customs, the rich maturing of old jokes. Sane marriage is an untheatrical thing; it is therefore not surprising that most modern dramatists have devoted themselves to insane marriage.
('George Bernard Shaw.')

IF Americans can be divorced for 'incompatibility of temper,' I cannot conceive why they are not all divorced. I have known many happy marriages, but never a compatible one. The whole aim of marriage is to fight through and survive the instant when incompatibility becomes unquestionable. For a man and a woman, as such, are incompatible.
('What's Wrong with the World.')

Points of Articulation

[This song's melody is 4/4 and is akin to a blend of Pearl Jam's "Sometimes" and Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark", with David Bowie vocals.

The first image that inspired this song is a wooden artist model. I also envision toy figures.

Other images that I draw from are 3-D graphing and engineering schematics.

I am also trying to indicate the linguistic sense of articulation.]

I enter the workshop
Turn on the lamp
I study the figures in dust
Clean off the table
and steady my hands
I've come to trace
the points of her articulation
the points of her articulation
I wanna see the points of her articulation
the points, the points of her articulation
the points of her articulation
the art of articulation
I wanna see her hinges
that creak a little when she twinges
Unveil the bearings
she rolls around when she's staring
I wanna find the tracks
that glisten beneath the cracks
at the points of her articulation
the points of her articulation
I wanna see the points of her articulation
Where she is glued
after she's unglued
The tab A that's in slot B
The nuts and bolts that hold her happy
I wanna find the creases
under the wrapper, when she releases*
the points of her articulation
the points, the points of her articulation

I need to know the points of her articulation
I need to know the vectors
I need to know the limits
I need to try the pulleys
I need to test the tension
I've got to know the points of her articulation
I know my own
points of articulation
But built together as one flesh
How will they mesh?
Or will they clash?
How will they groove?
Or just not move?
Who will I be
along the points of her articulation?
What will she change
in the points of my articulation?
Is this elation only covert strangulation?
Is the distance
only the first step o' the dance?
I wanna see the points of your articulation
the points, the points of your articulation
I wanna master the art of articulation
Gimme me the blueprint behind your articulation
Show me the key
so I know where I stand on the map
Explain the scale
so I see how I fit, into the tale
Guide me in the shadows**
so I can find true north
Give me a compass
so I know the journey is worth...it
Hand in hand,
I wanna carve our points of articulation
Because I'm in love
with the points of your articulation
the points, the points of your articulation
the art of your articulations




* alternate line: under the facade, when it ceases
** alternate line: Point out the shadows, so I know true north

Buddhist kindergartens…

In the local Buddhist kindergarten, it was art day.

The teacher handed out blank sheets of paper and told the students to draw whatever they wanted.

Some kids drew a horsey, some drew a rainbow, others drew cats and tigers and cars.

But she noticed one boy was only sitting there, drawing nothing.*

She asked, "Why haven't you drawn anything?"

He answered, "I have drawn what I want."

She reached into her desk drawer and handed him his diploma. He stood and left the room.

When other students noticed his absence, they asked where had gone.

"Will he be back soon?"

"Oh, of course," answered the teacher, "he is bound to come back again."

(The non-metaphysical version of this story is actually a joke, wherein the child's "nothing" is "a cow and some grass"… the cows having eaten all the grass and then, of course, moved on to a different pasture off the page.)

Need…Brauchen…Necesitar…需要…

Need is the most overused word in any language.

––Elliam Fakespeare