Author: a fool

All alone with Jesus

the existing individual

I am down the rabbit hole of existentialism. So, I just wanted to share this quote (because someone out there agrees with me):

In his reflection, Søren Kierkegaard deliberately focused on his own life, making it the subject of philosophical contemplation. He believed that the only true philosophy stems from life – a view that Friedrich Nietzsche later shared and expanded upon. Kierkegaard maintained that the only life we truly know is our own experience. … Operating with general concepts and categories, thoughts inevitably simplify and schematize everything. Therefore, no philosophy, reasoning, or language can fully express the truth of human existence, which is something unique and unrepeatable. So, the truth about existence can only be accessible through inner experience.

Exploring Søren Kierkegaard: Pursuing Authenticity and Existential Freedom

And, I would add, everything else is a leap of faith.

the task?

We are born biological beings but we must become existential individuals by accepting responsibility for our actions. This is an application of Nietzsche’s advice to ‘become what you are’. Many people never do acknowledge such responsibility but rather flee their existential individuality into the comfort of the faceless crowd.

Flynn, Thomas.
Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Psalm 100 – Jubilate Deo

O be joyful in the Lord, all ye lands : serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his presence with a song.

2 Be ye sure that the Lord he is God : it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

3 O go your way into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise : be thankful unto him, and speak good of his Name.

4 For the Lord is gracious, his mercy is everlasting : and his truth endureth from generation to generation.

being certain

… skepticism is but the result of our anxious desire to secure certainty by being “at home in the world.”

Harvey, Michael G.. Skepticism, Relativism, and Religious Knowledge

I struggle with what “tomorrow will bring.” I try to control things without much success. So, the above quote hits home (sorry!). Perhaps it is part of the anchorite tradition – the enclosed solitary life – to surrender any hope of certainty? I am thinking especially with other people. Do I have to make myself understood? Or is it that terrible if other people do not “get it”?

I am reading Slavoj Žižek. He is super funny. I think he is the perfect “modern” philosophy! Not for what he says but how he says it. Life is chaotic and unpredictable so why am I trying to be organised and predictable? Life is full of paradoxes and contradictions so maybe just take the leap and live?

All of that is super easy to say but living it is hard. Jesus by your holy wounds, have mercy on me.

comformist

No post – sorry. I have not spoken with anyone since the beginning of the year. So, maybe that helps?

I am reading. Lots of different books. I am trying for a book a week – non-theological and non-philosophical. I would like to read more literature. The first one is Never Let Me Go. A little slow at the start but gets a lot better. It has been banned in some states in the US.

Yesterday was a Desert Christian day. The following intrigues me:

We live in a society that is at once deeply individualist and deeply conformist; the desert fathers and mothers manage to be neither, and they suggest to us that the church’s calling likewise is to avoid both these pitfalls.

Williams, Rowan. Silence and Honey Cakes: The Wisdom of the Desert

The analysis is good. Yes, conformity is the only virtue. Perhaps it goes a little deeper:

Conformity is the tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms. Norms are implicit, specific rules shared by a group of individuals on how they should behave. People may be susceptible to conform to group norms because they want to gain acceptance from their group.

Conformity

The modern tendency is to think, “If we can measure it, we can build it”. Perhaps Kierkegaard’s leveling?

Anyway, back to solitude and silence.

Day 1 – mortification

Day 1! Will I get through to the end? Maybe not a great question for the first day.

As this is Day 1, The Circumcision of Christ, the first spilling of blood, I am going to share some insights from Morning Prayer

Stand in awe, and sin not : commune with your own heart, and in your chamber, and be still.
Offer the sacrifice of righteousness : and put your trust in the Lord.

Psalm 4:4, 5

Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man; Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I read a book on the spirituality of the Prayer Book that emphasised its monastic origins. Life is structured in prayer – Morning, Evening, and Mass. But the other side of monasticism – mortification or asceticism – did not get a mention. The 1662 BCP has a system of days of fasting, abstinence, and feasting.

So, Day 1: “mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts” and “offer the sacrifice of righteousness“.

Day 0 – questions

With God’s help, I plan to spend January alone. I am praying for a retreat at home.

Sometimes, writing down the question you bring to a retreat is a good idea. So: do I have a vocation to the solitary life? At the moment, I feel like I am using it as an excuse and escape from me. The end of the year was extremely difficult. And I have simply stepped back into old habits and thought patterns. So, to expand the question, do I have a vocation, or am I just running away from me?

I have become more aware of the differences between my view of Christianity and the community/parish. And that has really hurt. I would like to offer the hurt to Jesus as a form of mortification – hand it over to him. But, apart from the spiritual impact, there are impacts on my life-arrangement. In that context, do I have the resolution to start again?

And, to be honest, I feel like it is all me. I am again in a position where I feel I am the problem. In the end, there is no escaping me. Am I, as a person, suited to this life?

So, 31 days of January to work it all out!

Colossians 3

This is the reading for Evensong today (30 December) in the 1922 Lectionary. Prayer, mortification, and seelsorge.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Colossians 3:1-17

growth?

… he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort. … the church may receive edifying.

1 Cor 14:3, 5

Take heed that the persons, whom ye present unto us, be apt and meet, for their learning and godly conversation, to exercise their ministry duly, to the honour of God, and the edifying of his Church.

BCP: The Ordering of Priests

The Church and the priesthood are for growth in relationship with Jesus. It is not an institution concerned with itself. It is concerned with individuals. What happens when this individual “growth” is no longer the aim?

ye present your bodies a living sacrifice

O Almighty God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths: Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith, even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.