Rest up, brother! Some of that raw honey will do you well.
You've inspired me to put my right brain musings on (virtual) paper, and have contributed to the awakening of my inner poet. I am only one among a multitude who have benefited from your courage. I pray that this season of unseen growth leads to deeper and stronger roots for you my friend. More fruit will blossom in due time!
I am an old woman who cries easily but it still does not explain why tears started flowing as soon as I started to read this wonderful post. Thank you Paul for your conversion and your integrity. It works.
Surrounded by precious people who, like myself, some are facing terminal diagnosis, I am amazed at times by their quietness of suffering. The chemo ward gathers us all together from all warps of life and faiths. All of us are facing dying at our own pace- through our own individual processing. The uncertainty for us -and our beloved families-- of not knowing how or when it will happen, is a mountain to climb in terms of acceptance. One thing Paul I can say in terms of illness, is try to glimpse the stillness- it will be within you. I have written on this substack before ...when the minutes are hard, look for the moments. I read this at diagnosis and it has really helped me. God bless you Paul during this time of forced rest. I will pray for you.
I liked everything you said above, for what that's worth.
More than thirty seven years ago, when I broke down into a melancolic puddle, I lay on the coach of a psychoanalyst, raging and storming about how worthless I felt, and how the experience was like a hemorrage, feeling all of the life draining out of my body, and my analyst told me that what I was feeling was life itself, waking up inside of frozen me, breaking me open.
I decided that he was right, and that phrase has stayed with me after all these years as a profound truth : to what extent we are constantly taught in our civilisation that the life-in-death that we are living is real, whereas true, living life, (living water) is illness.
Now I feel ? know ? that to be truly alive means constantly picking away at the scab that seems to form automatically that closes us up to living (and potentially painful...) life, so that we can be open and vulnerable. That is what I believe, at any rate. And it is very uncomfortable, and makes me rather unpopular.
I feel that you have made the right decision about privileging your literary writing.
I have also noticed and personally experienced to what extent sensitive, literary people with an eye and an ear for metaphor (like John Keats ?) are attacked as worthless in our day and age, and this is a source of much suffering.
Are the prose writing sociologists our modern prophets ? That doesn't make prophecy very... tempting for me. (I like reading the Bible better.) Like you, I am almost totally out of the world. "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen", a Mahler song from the Rückert Lieder that you may know.. or not. Recommended as healing, but listen to the words in German too.
Yup. When I finally realized I'd collapsed, and finally came to, I set all my busy-ness away, and of the 'life' and the world that hadn't already cast me away when I could no longer 'perform':
I surrendered. I loaded a touring bicycle with gear enough to roll and camp and cook and set out from the left coast near the mouth of the Columbia, eastward. And into the hands of thousands of strangers for thousands of miles, and god, for months. And I was found.
I live smaller and more intentionally now. Every day another sort of pilgrimage, every day another finding of writers like Paul, every day another opportunity to journal, to correspond, to share quietly, to putter at making a little more beautiful my corner of this Eden I am still graced to inhabit. The World is a mess. I strive to be not a part of that, and be the small bit of healing of which I am imperfectly able. Thanks for sharing your journey here, neighbor. Vielen dank.
Well, good afternoon, Paul. Very pleased to hear from you at several levels.
It appears from your pictures that you and I are of the same bicycle frame size, and in all sincerity, I’d gladly let you ‘borrow’ my tourer for whatever pilgrimage might come together for you. There’s a picture of it in this link to the on-line journal I kept, along with a description of all the kit, here:
I still utilize it for heavier trips to the store, but my old Raleigh Deluxe can stand in for those tasks. I’d go through the bike so it’d be good for another five thousand miles (tires and chain wear excepted). And, even though there’s probably a lovely Holdsworth or Bob Jackson tourer sitting in a shed somewhere over there that could be picked up reasonably second-hand, mine could be shipped, If shipping things still remains possible this year (I have my doubts at the moment…)
The last entry in my on-line journal is the text of my homily given at the church I attended. It was too long. But everyone sat, rapt and quiet, except for the sniffles I heard that weren’t me; and there were tissues. I use a handkerchief. After that, fellow parishioners engaged with me in a different manner – perhaps not unlike a monastic pilgrim, I’d like to think.
It’s been ten years now since my first leg of that journey, and the ‘echoes’ of the silence of back roads, and the quieting of the steady cadence of pedaling still comes back, even on five-mile rides across town here.
Work of the sort you’ve done these past several years has been brilliant; brilliance comes at cost over time; more a steady erosion by drip, at the same time the being ‘in it’ enlarges consciousness and heart. I, and all of us, have grown from your being ‘out there’, and for me, I’m glad you’ve recognized that it’s time to consider your garden for Spring, and measure time in the manner that your bees do.
If you have questions about bicycle touring or particulars, here’s my regular e-mail: longtimd@gmail.com
As we used to say at the meetings: Thanks for sharing.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15. Where I live, a mile-and-a-half from the Mississippi River.
PS: I nearly got ‘round to see you in Chicago last fall, but life... Karen’s brilliant son heard you at the monastery in upstate New York, and reported back that he found you to be genuine. Me, too.
Thanks for your testimony, and I am glad that you were healed this way, and we are doing many of the same things, as in living smaller and doing more intentionally.
Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time cleaning the thingee that I put my dishes in when I have finished washing them. I can't remember the word for it any more, because English is not a language I spend much time in anymore. But... it was right spending a fair amount of time putting elbow grease to that inordinately grimy object, and I know that getting closer to God for me entails spending more time cleaning, scrubbing, scraping (I'm already dirty enough, see below...), putting things away, setting my house IN ORDER a little better, since I am lucky enough to have a roof over my head in bad weather.
We both share feeling grateful, and not having hard hearts, hopefully ? Working in that direction, in any case.
How very delightful to hear from you, Debra :) And, as a person whose university deutsch ist nun ya schrecklich, your englisch ist just lovely. 'Dish drainer' we call them, here in Illinois in the upper midwest. And thanks, in no small part to my reading of Paul's work, I have slowed the heck down and re-introduced 'friction' into just about all of my life. Also grateful to have a humble roof over my head, a 100-year-old Arts and Crafts bungalow. Most of my winter heating is by wood that I've gathered, cut, split and ricked; most of my transportation is via bicycle, generally old English bicycles that I've repaired and refurbished into functional, beautiful means of conveyance; if a motor vehicle is called for, I have a fifty-year old Triumph motorcycle that I maintain and is easy on petrol; and, this is the year, all things considered, that I finally put my fifty-year-old Volvo station wagon back together. We wash dishes by hand, we purchase needs locally from small shops, and I utilize second-hand and charity shops for supplies. And, yes, my heart softens for my neighbors and those people with whom I cross paths who struggle with life, which is harder every year. For those who take advantage of the vulnerable? I am not so charitable. But, to your hope: working in that direction, indeed.
Ich bin auch der Welt abhanden gekommen ;-) „Und die, die beim Tanzen gesehen wurden, wurden von denen, die die Musik nicht hören konnten, für verrückt gehalten.“
Have you heard of the parable of the acorns?
"Once upon a time, in a not-so-far-away land, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree.
Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their business with purposeful energy; and since they were midlife, ambitious acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called 'Getting All You Can out of Your Shell.' There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their original fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acorn-o-pathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being.
One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped 'out of the blue' by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And crouched beneath the oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing upward at the tree, he said, 'We…are…that!'
𝗗𝗲𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but one of them continued to engage him in conversation: 'So tell us, how would we become that tree?' 'Well,” he said, pointing downward, 'it has something to do with going into the ground …and cracking open the shell.'
'Insane,' they responded. 'Totally morbid! Why, then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore!'"
Thanks. See above comment for "dirty". Very important. But... we shouldn't let things get "out of hand".
I like the idea of oaks. They are not reeds, are they ? Are we supposed to be oaks AND reeds ? I don't know. Right now, I'm feeling pretty oak, not so much acorn, and definitely not reed...
I like the image in Psalm 1: "like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither." And the wicked? They are empty shells of course - "that the wind drives away."
But I occasionally get worried, though. I never feel comfortable about deciding for myself what or whose side I am on, because I never know if/when the wind could drive me away with lots of others, not all of us necessarily the wicked, either. Evil comes into the world from good intentions, too, and that is not comforting.
And I remember that the people who were writing those psalms were probably a lot closer to nature than those writing later on in the Bible, the ones who were feeling particularly virtuous, for example, convinced that they were on God's side, and He was on theirs.
As an Anglican I am so grateful you for what you say about your baptism and growth in Christ: I think it was Fr Alexander Men who said that the divisions between Christians do not reach the heavens.
This is the most truthful and wonderful thing I've read in a long time. Thank you. I also understand being stripped down of everything - and somehow feeling grateful for it. There is hope for us all - and it's in Christ.
Blessings to you on this Feast of Theophany and the anniversary of your baptism. On this double-anniversary it seems fitting to share an excerpt from a discourse on the Theophany by pseudo-Hippolytus taken from today’s Office of Readings in the Catholic Church’s Liturgy of the Hours:
“The Father of immortality sent his immortal Son and Word into the world, to come to us men and cleanse us with water and the Spirit. To give us a new birth that would make our bodies and souls immortal, he breathed into us the spirit of life and armed us with incorruptibility. Now if we become immortal, we shall also be divine; and if we become divine after rebirth in baptism through water and the Holy Spirit, we shall also be heirs along with Christ, after the resurrection of the dead.
“So I cry out, like a herald: Let peoples of every nation come and receive the immortality that flows from baptism. This is the water that is linked to the Spirit, the water that irrigates Paradise, makes the earth fertile, gives growth to plants, and brings forth living creatures. In short, this is the water by which a man receives new birth and life, the water in which even Christ was baptized, the water into which the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove.
“Whoever goes down into these waters of rebirth with faith renounces the devil and pledges himself to Christ. He repudiates the enemy and confesses that Christ is God, throws off his servitude and becomes an adopted son. He comes up from baptism resplendent as the sun and radiating purity and, above all, he comes as a son of God and a co-heir with Christ.
“To him be glory and power, to him and his most holy, good and life-giving Spirit, both now and for ever. Amen.”
I marvel that you have only been a Christian for 5 years. Truth like that doesn't come cheaply. It is a wisdom that only springs forth from a deep work of the cross. It is the very fragrance and aroma of Christ. May He break each of us open in His love, and bring us to a better place. You and the Abbey are in my prayers dear brother.
The kingdom of heaven being populated with people fascinated by the precise metallic colour of beetle shells! What a glorious thought. No arguing over theology…just mulling over the stuff that brings us a bit of wonder.
Children’s book are good medicine. My near 60 year old husband still reads Danny Champion of the World….
I know it might sound strange but really praising God might bring some healing and refreshment.
The way baptism and illness mirror one another here feels deeply patterned to me.
Both involve descent, helplessness, and a surrender of self-direction. Not before this can anything new emerge. Going under the water and being drawn out of the world of speed and abstraction don’t feel like opposites so much as echoes of the same truth at different levels. Nothing new is being added, only layers being gently stripped away, until something childlike and essential is revealed again.
This is one of the great beauties of Christianity for me. That it doesn’t deny suffering and doesn’t explain it away, but makes sense of it, allowing even weakness and illness to become meaningful.
What you describe feels less like “punishment” and more like reorientation. As if the axis of life is slowly being turned back toward what can actually bear weight. Grateful you shared this, and I truly wish you steadiness, patience, and a deep healing.
That's nice Paul - free for all. ❤️
Rest up, brother! Some of that raw honey will do you well.
You've inspired me to put my right brain musings on (virtual) paper, and have contributed to the awakening of my inner poet. I am only one among a multitude who have benefited from your courage. I pray that this season of unseen growth leads to deeper and stronger roots for you my friend. More fruit will blossom in due time!
https://andrewsawyer.substack.com/p/coming-soon-the-way-home-a-nine-part
I am an old woman who cries easily but it still does not explain why tears started flowing as soon as I started to read this wonderful post. Thank you Paul for your conversion and your integrity. It works.
Surrounded by precious people who, like myself, some are facing terminal diagnosis, I am amazed at times by their quietness of suffering. The chemo ward gathers us all together from all warps of life and faiths. All of us are facing dying at our own pace- through our own individual processing. The uncertainty for us -and our beloved families-- of not knowing how or when it will happen, is a mountain to climb in terms of acceptance. One thing Paul I can say in terms of illness, is try to glimpse the stillness- it will be within you. I have written on this substack before ...when the minutes are hard, look for the moments. I read this at diagnosis and it has really helped me. God bless you Paul during this time of forced rest. I will pray for you.
Well said Paul. I am with you.
Hallelujah ✋🏼
It's good to hear from you Paul.
Happy New Year.
I liked everything you said above, for what that's worth.
More than thirty seven years ago, when I broke down into a melancolic puddle, I lay on the coach of a psychoanalyst, raging and storming about how worthless I felt, and how the experience was like a hemorrage, feeling all of the life draining out of my body, and my analyst told me that what I was feeling was life itself, waking up inside of frozen me, breaking me open.
I decided that he was right, and that phrase has stayed with me after all these years as a profound truth : to what extent we are constantly taught in our civilisation that the life-in-death that we are living is real, whereas true, living life, (living water) is illness.
Now I feel ? know ? that to be truly alive means constantly picking away at the scab that seems to form automatically that closes us up to living (and potentially painful...) life, so that we can be open and vulnerable. That is what I believe, at any rate. And it is very uncomfortable, and makes me rather unpopular.
I feel that you have made the right decision about privileging your literary writing.
I have also noticed and personally experienced to what extent sensitive, literary people with an eye and an ear for metaphor (like John Keats ?) are attacked as worthless in our day and age, and this is a source of much suffering.
Are the prose writing sociologists our modern prophets ? That doesn't make prophecy very... tempting for me. (I like reading the Bible better.) Like you, I am almost totally out of the world. "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen", a Mahler song from the Rückert Lieder that you may know.. or not. Recommended as healing, but listen to the words in German too.
Best wishes on your pilgrimage ? to healing.
Yup. When I finally realized I'd collapsed, and finally came to, I set all my busy-ness away, and of the 'life' and the world that hadn't already cast me away when I could no longer 'perform':
I surrendered. I loaded a touring bicycle with gear enough to roll and camp and cook and set out from the left coast near the mouth of the Columbia, eastward. And into the hands of thousands of strangers for thousands of miles, and god, for months. And I was found.
I live smaller and more intentionally now. Every day another sort of pilgrimage, every day another finding of writers like Paul, every day another opportunity to journal, to correspond, to share quietly, to putter at making a little more beautiful my corner of this Eden I am still graced to inhabit. The World is a mess. I strive to be not a part of that, and be the small bit of healing of which I am imperfectly able. Thanks for sharing your journey here, neighbor. Vielen dank.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15.
That sounds tempting. Maybe when my children have left home, the bicycle pilgrimage will call ... Hopefully I will be functioning again by then!
Well, good afternoon, Paul. Very pleased to hear from you at several levels.
It appears from your pictures that you and I are of the same bicycle frame size, and in all sincerity, I’d gladly let you ‘borrow’ my tourer for whatever pilgrimage might come together for you. There’s a picture of it in this link to the on-line journal I kept, along with a description of all the kit, here:
https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=3d2&page_id=352988&v=Oh&src=page_first
I still utilize it for heavier trips to the store, but my old Raleigh Deluxe can stand in for those tasks. I’d go through the bike so it’d be good for another five thousand miles (tires and chain wear excepted). And, even though there’s probably a lovely Holdsworth or Bob Jackson tourer sitting in a shed somewhere over there that could be picked up reasonably second-hand, mine could be shipped, If shipping things still remains possible this year (I have my doubts at the moment…)
The last entry in my on-line journal is the text of my homily given at the church I attended. It was too long. But everyone sat, rapt and quiet, except for the sniffles I heard that weren’t me; and there were tissues. I use a handkerchief. After that, fellow parishioners engaged with me in a different manner – perhaps not unlike a monastic pilgrim, I’d like to think.
It’s been ten years now since my first leg of that journey, and the ‘echoes’ of the silence of back roads, and the quieting of the steady cadence of pedaling still comes back, even on five-mile rides across town here.
Work of the sort you’ve done these past several years has been brilliant; brilliance comes at cost over time; more a steady erosion by drip, at the same time the being ‘in it’ enlarges consciousness and heart. I, and all of us, have grown from your being ‘out there’, and for me, I’m glad you’ve recognized that it’s time to consider your garden for Spring, and measure time in the manner that your bees do.
If you have questions about bicycle touring or particulars, here’s my regular e-mail: longtimd@gmail.com
As we used to say at the meetings: Thanks for sharing.
Tim Long, Just Up the Hill from Lock 15. Where I live, a mile-and-a-half from the Mississippi River.
PS: I nearly got ‘round to see you in Chicago last fall, but life... Karen’s brilliant son heard you at the monastery in upstate New York, and reported back that he found you to be genuine. Me, too.
Thanks for your testimony, and I am glad that you were healed this way, and we are doing many of the same things, as in living smaller and doing more intentionally.
Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time cleaning the thingee that I put my dishes in when I have finished washing them. I can't remember the word for it any more, because English is not a language I spend much time in anymore. But... it was right spending a fair amount of time putting elbow grease to that inordinately grimy object, and I know that getting closer to God for me entails spending more time cleaning, scrubbing, scraping (I'm already dirty enough, see below...), putting things away, setting my house IN ORDER a little better, since I am lucky enough to have a roof over my head in bad weather.
We both share feeling grateful, and not having hard hearts, hopefully ? Working in that direction, in any case.
How very delightful to hear from you, Debra :) And, as a person whose university deutsch ist nun ya schrecklich, your englisch ist just lovely. 'Dish drainer' we call them, here in Illinois in the upper midwest. And thanks, in no small part to my reading of Paul's work, I have slowed the heck down and re-introduced 'friction' into just about all of my life. Also grateful to have a humble roof over my head, a 100-year-old Arts and Crafts bungalow. Most of my winter heating is by wood that I've gathered, cut, split and ricked; most of my transportation is via bicycle, generally old English bicycles that I've repaired and refurbished into functional, beautiful means of conveyance; if a motor vehicle is called for, I have a fifty-year old Triumph motorcycle that I maintain and is easy on petrol; and, this is the year, all things considered, that I finally put my fifty-year-old Volvo station wagon back together. We wash dishes by hand, we purchase needs locally from small shops, and I utilize second-hand and charity shops for supplies. And, yes, my heart softens for my neighbors and those people with whom I cross paths who struggle with life, which is harder every year. For those who take advantage of the vulnerable? I am not so charitable. But, to your hope: working in that direction, indeed.
Thank you again for sharing, and for your note.
Tim Long
Just Up the Hill from Lock 15.
Sounds like heaven, Tim. Keep going, I say, keep going, and good luck.
Ich bin auch der Welt abhanden gekommen ;-) „Und die, die beim Tanzen gesehen wurden, wurden von denen, die die Musik nicht hören konnten, für verrückt gehalten.“
Have you heard of the parable of the acorns?
"Once upon a time, in a not-so-far-away land, there was a kingdom of acorns, nestled at the foot of a grand old oak tree.
Since the citizens of this kingdom were modern, fully Westernized acorns, they went about their business with purposeful energy; and since they were midlife, ambitious acorns, they engaged in a lot of self-help courses. There were seminars called 'Getting All You Can out of Your Shell.' There were woundedness and recovery groups for acorns who had been bruised in their original fall from the tree. There were spas for oiling and polishing those shells and various acorn-o-pathic therapies to enhance longevity and well-being.
One day in the midst of this kingdom there suddenly appeared a knotty little stranger, apparently dropped 'out of the blue' by a passing bird. He was capless and dirty, making an immediate negative impression on his fellow acorns. And crouched beneath the oak tree, he stammered out a wild tale. Pointing upward at the tree, he said, 'We…are…that!'
𝗗𝗲𝗹𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴, obviously, the other acorns concluded, but one of them continued to engage him in conversation: 'So tell us, how would we become that tree?' 'Well,” he said, pointing downward, 'it has something to do with going into the ground …and cracking open the shell.'
'Insane,' they responded. 'Totally morbid! Why, then we wouldn’t be acorns anymore!'"
𝑺𝒐 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏, “𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝑴𝑨𝑵, 𝑨𝒅𝒂𝒎, 𝑩𝑬𝑪𝑨𝑴𝑬 𝑨 𝑳𝑰𝑽𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑺𝑶𝑼𝑳.” 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝑨𝒅𝒂𝒎 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆-𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒕.
𝑯𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓, 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒂𝒍; 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉, 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒚; 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏.
𝑨𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒚, 𝒔𝒐 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒚; 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒍𝒚, 𝒔𝒐 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒍𝒚.
𝑱𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒔 𝒘𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒚, 𝒘𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒐 𝒃𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒍𝒚.
1 Corinthians 15:45-49
I like that!
Thanks. See above comment for "dirty". Very important. But... we shouldn't let things get "out of hand".
I like the idea of oaks. They are not reeds, are they ? Are we supposed to be oaks AND reeds ? I don't know. Right now, I'm feeling pretty oak, not so much acorn, and definitely not reed...
I like the image in Psalm 1: "like a tree planted by streams of water, that yields its fruit in season, and its leaf does not wither." And the wicked? They are empty shells of course - "that the wind drives away."
I love those Psalms.
But I occasionally get worried, though. I never feel comfortable about deciding for myself what or whose side I am on, because I never know if/when the wind could drive me away with lots of others, not all of us necessarily the wicked, either. Evil comes into the world from good intentions, too, and that is not comforting.
And I remember that the people who were writing those psalms were probably a lot closer to nature than those writing later on in the Bible, the ones who were feeling particularly virtuous, for example, convinced that they were on God's side, and He was on theirs.
Thank you Debra for these thoughts. Much to think about!
As an Anglican I am so grateful you for what you say about your baptism and growth in Christ: I think it was Fr Alexander Men who said that the divisions between Christians do not reach the heavens.
This is the most truthful and wonderful thing I've read in a long time. Thank you. I also understand being stripped down of everything - and somehow feeling grateful for it. There is hope for us all - and it's in Christ.
Be well and rest up, Paul. In the sage words of Toad, "Winter may be beautiful, but bed is better."
All wisdom needed can be found in the words of Toad.
Hear, hear. Coming back to the Frog and Toad books now that I have kids has been a real pleasure.
Something began to peel away from me as I read this, Paul. Thank you
Blessings to you on this Feast of Theophany and the anniversary of your baptism. On this double-anniversary it seems fitting to share an excerpt from a discourse on the Theophany by pseudo-Hippolytus taken from today’s Office of Readings in the Catholic Church’s Liturgy of the Hours:
“The Father of immortality sent his immortal Son and Word into the world, to come to us men and cleanse us with water and the Spirit. To give us a new birth that would make our bodies and souls immortal, he breathed into us the spirit of life and armed us with incorruptibility. Now if we become immortal, we shall also be divine; and if we become divine after rebirth in baptism through water and the Holy Spirit, we shall also be heirs along with Christ, after the resurrection of the dead.
“So I cry out, like a herald: Let peoples of every nation come and receive the immortality that flows from baptism. This is the water that is linked to the Spirit, the water that irrigates Paradise, makes the earth fertile, gives growth to plants, and brings forth living creatures. In short, this is the water by which a man receives new birth and life, the water in which even Christ was baptized, the water into which the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove.
“Whoever goes down into these waters of rebirth with faith renounces the devil and pledges himself to Christ. He repudiates the enemy and confesses that Christ is God, throws off his servitude and becomes an adopted son. He comes up from baptism resplendent as the sun and radiating purity and, above all, he comes as a son of God and a co-heir with Christ.
“To him be glory and power, to him and his most holy, good and life-giving Spirit, both now and for ever. Amen.”
I marvel that you have only been a Christian for 5 years. Truth like that doesn't come cheaply. It is a wisdom that only springs forth from a deep work of the cross. It is the very fragrance and aroma of Christ. May He break each of us open in His love, and bring us to a better place. You and the Abbey are in my prayers dear brother.
The kingdom of heaven being populated with people fascinated by the precise metallic colour of beetle shells! What a glorious thought. No arguing over theology…just mulling over the stuff that brings us a bit of wonder.
Children’s book are good medicine. My near 60 year old husband still reads Danny Champion of the World….
I know it might sound strange but really praising God might bring some healing and refreshment.
I always turn to psalm 103.
Take care and God Bless
Danny Champion of the World has stayed with me for about 40 years!
The way baptism and illness mirror one another here feels deeply patterned to me.
Both involve descent, helplessness, and a surrender of self-direction. Not before this can anything new emerge. Going under the water and being drawn out of the world of speed and abstraction don’t feel like opposites so much as echoes of the same truth at different levels. Nothing new is being added, only layers being gently stripped away, until something childlike and essential is revealed again.
This is one of the great beauties of Christianity for me. That it doesn’t deny suffering and doesn’t explain it away, but makes sense of it, allowing even weakness and illness to become meaningful.
What you describe feels less like “punishment” and more like reorientation. As if the axis of life is slowly being turned back toward what can actually bear weight. Grateful you shared this, and I truly wish you steadiness, patience, and a deep healing.
All good. Peace to you and yours.