Author: a fool

All alone with Jesus

hope?

Hope is a passion for the possible.

Fear and Trembling

While I think the above is from Fear and Trembling, I cannot actually find the quote. So, any help is welcome!

I remember once reading that the cruellest thing one human being can do to another is removing hope. To never see anything changing, to being stuck. Not stuck in the present as a good thing but rather being stuck in a deep dark hole without the possibility of ever escaping. Tomorrow – or the next moment – is simply more of the same.

At the moment I know what that feels like. I am acting and praying. But I know what it feels like to have all hope for tomorrow removed. The cruelty of it. All by the free choice of another, simply to hurt. I have taken my anti-anxiety tablets, tried to sit still and read, but the feeling is still there. I feel like I am falling into myself – into the black hole that is within me. And I cannot see it changing.

praying?

The above is one of my favourite Merton pictures. It is, I think, from the time of his ordination to the priesthood. I wonder how he felt about having his picture taken during prayer? I know how I would feel.

I have been using a “meditation bench” for a time of mental prayer in the morning. I am old and I find sitting, kneeling, or standing somewhat difficult. But I can kneel using the bench. It keeps my back straight so I get little to no ache. Alas, I do not have enough padding so I do get a little sore sitting on the bare bench.

I think about all the things I do during the day. All the things I think are vital. Yet I often cannot find 10 minutes to just rest in the presence of Jesus. I want to organise my day better so that I can start with time with Jesus – resting, listening, lamenting.

Anyway, have a Jesus filled day.

contemplation?

I struggle with words! What do they mean? Often we use words like spears without ever looking into what they mean. As an aside, that is why Jesus is needed – the Incarnate Word.

Anyway, I have been thinking about what “contemplation” means. And I stumbled onto this video. Enjoy!

the common good?

I have been watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. To be honest, it is not the first time. Or, I suspect, the last. The whole “beam me up Scotty” gives me metaphysical anxiety – is it the same person? Other aspects make me cringe – the utopian ideas. And “The Crazyhorse” makes me giggle.

Yesterday I was thinking about the Borg and the Captain as I watched Descent. There is a way that the whole Borg thing is very Kierkegaardian – the anti-single-individual. Yet at the end of the episode, Picard talks about the common good and it made me think of Fear and Trembling.

Picard is the Tragic Hero who sacrifices the self for the universal. But I was thinking about Christians and the common good. It is like love: “God is love” (1 John 4:16) but love is not God. The common good is not God. Working for the common good is not always working for God. And sometimes the common good can be anti-God.

I think I often mistake an idea for a person. I can only relate to a person, I can only love a person, but I can know an idea. I like The Imitation of Christ on this: to know is to take in but to love is to give. An important idea to hold before me – I am called to love people! And that loving is not always the same as the common good because it calls me to sacrifice.

Anyhow, that was much more involved than I had intended.

waiting

I was thinking yesterday, while in church, I am waiting. I am waiting to get better, to find some balance in life. I am waiting for people to act and react, for life to progress beyond the stalemate of the moment. I am waiting for things to become clear in my life, where I am going and what it is God wants from me.

I am not a person blessed with patience. My tablets, which offered so much help and comfort, have become burdensome. Yes, I sometimes forget to take them and then remember at the most awkward moment. My doctor has suggested moving to a different type of medication but I am terrified of the transition. Counselling has been a great help – I may say, life-saving – but I feel like I am simply going round in circles. I feel a sense of not being able to move beyond the past. Maybe I am just a ghost that is ignored?

So I am really not sure where I am at the moment. Writing this blog without aim? Grand schemes that never amount to anything? (That Pink Floyd line, “Plans that either come to nought or half a page of scribbled lines”.) I think if the Olympics included sleeping as a sport, I could win something.

I do not enjoy this “holding pattern” way of living. I know that I should live in the present, the now, but at the moment that is just a little too hard. I know people are using my stress and pain to their advantage. I know betrayal. But knowing and living are two different things.

So, anyway, life goes on.

the whimsy

I have been enjoying Bridgerton. It is a little what I imagine Kierkegaard’s Copenhagen would have looked like. The whole series is a little what I imagine Soren and Regina were like.

Anyway, the music in Bridgerton is so cool – especially the classical covers of modern hits. So enjoy this one!

vegan?

So I have been trying to eat vegan. Ok, I live in a house which is European and so I eat what is set before me which often includes lots of meat. But when I get to choose for myself, when I pick the food or the drink, I take the vegan or vegetarian option.

Nothing life-changing about that! I am no better or worse for making a choice of my food intact. But I have noticed that I think a lot more about the food I eat. I do not snack as much as I used to and I do not eat mindlessly to pass the time. And I think that is the spiritual side to it – I reflect before I eat rather than after. I think the “water and bread” diet of Medieval anchorites is a little too ascetic for me. And I do not live alone as yet so I still fit into the household.

I reflect and I notice the emotion before I eat. Yes, I am an emotional eater. I have a long list of comfort food – none of which is any good for me. Maybe this is all part of a change of life for me? More aware of who I am and what I do? I gave up alcohol more than a year ago. It reacts badly with my medicine. But, I admit, I sometimes still think about it with a hint of regret. I do not miss trying to hide the hangovers!

Yes, it is all about emotions for me. I would like to have a balance but I feel like it is just beyond reach at the moment. Yet naming it and facing it without the help of food (or alcohol) is part of maturing. And part of truly being me before God.

As long as I can still have tea!

resolution?

The conclusion of belief is no conclusion but a resolution, and thus doubt is excluded.

Kierkegaard.

Have I shared that SK quote? I feel I have.

I have been thinking about resolutions. Not the New Year’s resolution that I never keep. Resolutions that motivate life. I think the above is true for relationships in general – with Jesus and with others. A resolution may not always end in action (or appropriate action) but it will always try again. Is resolution an act of the will? So is a resolution related to love?

Anyhow, it is Saturday and I need to do something!

more?

I heard this song in the car on the way home from youth last night. I remember listening to it on repeat about this time last year. I was thinking it was a good(ish) Easter song!

I was thinking (in the car) that it is one thing to say you desire only Jesus (for the exclusion of others) and actually living it. I guess that is why it is a “sacrifice” in the Romans 12 sense?! And, in being alone for Jesus only, to love people for themselves and not for their usefulness.

I think it is Cassian who talks about the motivation behind people joining religious communities. Some for fear of the past (penitence), some waiting for a future (salvation), and a small number for the love of God now.

I was thinking that the desire to be alone can come from very selfish motivation. Either I am so bad that no one wants to be with me or I am so good that no one can come close to me. I often do things for completely wrong motives, even the good ones. How do I desire Jesus alone in a real sense in reality?

I am happiest alone: reading, praying, thinking. I have really discovered that in the last month or so. It makes me act different around people. (Ok, even more awkward than usual!) But is that self-defence because of chemicals in my brain or is it a spiritual calling?