religion?

Daily writing prompt
What was your favorite subject in school?
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The great thing about subjects at school is that they can be held at arm’s length. I can study and collect all the knowledge but not emotionally engage with it—a little like Mary’s Room.

At the end of my schooling, it was mathematics. I was hoping to be a math teacher. I even started a university degree. But that did not happen.

When I was just starting, my reports say I was very good at religion. (My mother reminded me on Sunday.) I am not sure what that means. Later, I found other things to “excite” me. Somehow, my life has come full circle.

I should add that I am “good” (relatively) at religion, theology, and philosophy. That does not mean I have it all together or am perfect. I am working on the lived experience every day.

silence

Daily writing prompt
What’s something you believe everyone should know.
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To sit in silence without needing outside stimulation or other people. It can be for 10 minutes or five during the day. Sit outside and enjoy the sun, or just listen to the rain. Without a goal, a product, or an end, simply sit in silence and be “me.”

so …

So I have been feeling super crap. A depressive episode, on top of a lot of change and a surprise meeting, has made life almost unbearable. I spoke with my counsellor yesterday, and that has most certainly helped. (Not least because he offered spiritual advice.) Honestly, I had enough yesterday morning and was ready to pack my bags.

Life is never rosy for me, nor do I expect it to be. I have made huge mistakes in my life. I have hurt, and continue to hurt, people that I love. People are not a “means to an end” – even my own mental health. I am a sinner. Everything in my life reminds me that I cannot do it without Jesus.

I cannot expect other people to change to suit me. I must change. Jesus is present in the moment not to judge but to be chosen. Every moment, “Do you turn to Christ?”.

What is happiness? Any day in which I make it to the end. Solitude comes with great risks, above all, the risk of self-indulgence. Perhaps I am simply selfish and not depressed—someone did once say that to me. Yet, I also recognise that the desert is a place of battle. I have an icon of St John the Baptist that reminds me of the cost.

So what now? Wait! Grrrrr?!?!?! Not easy. Wait for Jesus. And hand it all to him. Be present to Jesus in the now and not the possible future – or the painful past. Allow my pain to connect me to Jesus on the cross. Pray!

Anyway …

… becoming free

If the monastic ideal is to attain a creative spiritual freedom, if the monastic ideal realizes that freedom is attainable only in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and if the monastic ideal asserts that to become a slave to God is ontologically and existentially the path to becoming free, the path in which humanity fully becomes human precisely because the created existence of humanity is contingent upon God, is by itself bordered on both sides by non-existence, then is such an ideal Christian? Is such an ideal Biblical—New Testamental? (The Byzantine, Ascetic and Spiritual Fathers)

Sánchez-Escobar, Ángel F.. ON ASCESIS AND HESYCHASM, AND THE CHURCH FATHERS (Books on Christian Orthodoxy) (p. 47)

duty

Duty becomes duty by being referred to God, but in the duty itself I do not enter into relation to God. For instance, it is a duty to love one’s neighbor. It is a duty by its being referred to God, but in the duty I do not enter into a relation to God but to the neighbor I love.

Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling

Jesus calls me to love my neighbour, but that love of neighbour is not my relationship with Jesus. It is my relationship with my neighbour. If I love my neighbour (who, like me, is a sinner in need of Jesus) only because Jesus says so, what does that say about my understanding of my neighbour? Anyway …