Introspection : CS Lewis

The attempt to discover by introspective analysis our own spiritual condition is to me a horrible thing which reveals, at best, not the secrets of God’s spirit and ours, but their transpositions in intellect, emotion, and imagination, and which at worst may be the quickest road to presumption or despair.

-CS Lewis

The Body of Christ

“The church likes to refer to itself as the “Body of Christ”. But it behaves as if it thought it could be the Body of Christ painlessly, as if it could be the Body without having to be stretched, almost torn apart, as if it could be the Body of Christ without having to carry its own cross, without having to hang up on that cross in the agony of conflict. In thinking that it could be thus painlessly the church has made a lie out of the expression the “Body of Christ”’. – M. Scott Peck

Andrey Tarkovsky on Modern Art

“Modern art has taken a wrong turn in abandoning the search for the meaning of existence in order to affirm the value of the individual for its own sake. What purports to be art begins to look like an eccentric occupation for suspect characters who maintain that any personalized action is of intrinsic value simple as a display of self-will. But in artistic creation the personality does not assert itself, it serves another, higher and communal idea. The artist is always a servant, and is perpetually trying to pay for the gift that has been given to him as if by a miracle. Modern man, however, does not want to make any sacrifice, even though true affirmation of self can only be expressed in sacrifice.”

-Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time

Jumping from Protestantism

“I am sorry to think that there are people out there whose Protestantism has been so barren that they never found out about sacraments, transformation, community or eschatology. Clearly this person needed a change. But to jump to Rome for that reason is very odd.”

-NT Wright

ERH on Schism

“The schism, at this moment, unites the Christians more than it separates them. It becomes a part of every Christian’s real existence in the world. That he is a member of one denomination is one thing, that he is a member of Christendom at large is of at least the same momentum. And the schism between East and West by its depth restores the full size of the decision between the Cross and the non-crucial mentalities; compared to the schism, the childishness and small stature of denominational quarrels is too obvious. And a Christian may become a full-grown adult again instead of a Sunday school boy by identifying himself with his schismatic brothers. Unless he can do this, he has not grown up.”

-Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, The Christian Future

(italics original)

I’m Catholic

in the Protestant Rite.

Or as Dr. Peter Leithart puts it:

Liturgical Protestantism is fundamentally catholic.  It is catholic not because it reduces Confessional requirements or advocates a pietist non-Confessionalism.  It is catholic because it recognizes that the center of the church’s life and identity is not humanly constructed Confessions but the God-Man Jesus, communicated to His people through word and sacrament.

St. Augustine & A.R. Ammons

But what is this? I asked the earth and she replied: “It is not I,” and all that is in her made the same response. I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping spirits and they answered: “We are not thy God; look above us.” I asked the fleet winds, and the whole air with its inhabitants said: “Anaximenes is mistaken. I am not God.” I asked the sky, the sun, the moon and the stars. “Neither are we,” said they, “the God whom thou seekest.” And I cried to everything that stands about the doors of my flesh: “Tell me of my God, since you art not He. Tell me something of Him!” And they shouted aloud: “He made us.”
-St. Augustine

The pieces of my voice have been thrown
away I said turning to the hedgerows
and hidden ditches
Where do the pieces of
my voice lie scattered
The cedarcone said you have been ground
down into and whirled

Tomorrow I must go look under the clumps of
marshgrass in wet deserts
and in dry deserts
when the wind falls from the mountain
inquire of the chuckwalla what he saw go by
and what the sidewinder found
risen in the changing sand
I must run down all the pieces
and build the whole silence back

As I look across the fields the sun
big in my eyes I see the hills
the great black unwasting silence and
know I must go out beyond the hills and seek
for I am broken over the earth-
so little remains
for the silent offering of my death

-A.R. Ammons

How the Unity We Have in Christ Spreads To All Areas

“Feed my sheep” does not mean “Be fed by my shepherd”.

Roman, Orthodox, and sectarian protestants hinge doctrinal unity on intellectual assent. Biblically, table fellowship is first not last.

ERH writes about the three epochs of Christianity, the first epoch is the Unity of God is spread, God defeating the plurality of gods, the second epoch is the Unity of the World, where the world is connected together, and the third stage is the Unity of Man, in which race and class are no longer divisive.  We are in the last stages of the second epoch, entering the third.

ERH on the Creed and a Footnote

In short, the story of man since Christ has been the application of the Athanasian Creed to everyday life. The story makes it clear that the Creed is not a statement of bare facts but a command given at baptism. The Creed describes essentially three things- God’s trust in man, God’s liberty, God’s creativity (5) -and enjoins us to accept the conditions under which we may make Man by sharing these Divine attributes.

5. These are the powers of faith, love, hope, which bridge the abysses inside of “Man” whom we little men have to represent through the ages. It is essential to realize that they come from God rather than the human will. The Greek and Hebrew words for faith mean God’s faithfulness and trust. Our believe is but the poor reflex of God’s faithfulness to all of us together. William James’ unfortunate phrase of “the Will to Believe,” ushered in the revolt of the masses because it deprive our faith of its prop. The masses are plunged into night when faith is made dependent of human will, instead of meaning that God holds us in the palm of his hand. Similarly love and its liberty are too often confused with will, even by theologians. Love and will have as little to do with each other as a wedding ring with a cannon. Will is not free, for it must struggle for life; but love is free, because it can chose death.

-Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

An Advent Prayer

Drop down, ye heavens, from above: and let the skies pour down righteousness. Let the earth open: and let them bring forth salvation.