John goes from looking at nature to thinking about the creator of such a beautiful world and how awesome He must be. I go from looking at creation and thinking it and I are close to the same level to let's all praise God together. I'm impressed by his detachment from the physical world so he can be completely attached only to God. I can understand how he gets there but I question whether I ever could. Gratitude for the gifts, yes, but to have that kind of detachment from them would take a miracle from God. It's completely beyond me.
I have been playing the organ/piano for my parish as soon as I got my hands worked up well enough to try it. The reason I play is because the parish needed an organist although I'm really a pianist so I am basically doing it for the parish. Sometimes I also do it to praise God, sometimes I do it when I'm terrified of messing up (although that is disappearing as I get more experience and am less self-conscious about what I'm doing). I know if I were playing completely with my focus on Jesus it would go so smoothly. Get out of the way and let God is true in this as in so many things. Let Him use me and everything will work together for good because I do love Him in my feeble human way. But there you are.
Yes it is doing good. Confession is my favorite sacrament because I always feel like I've just taken a spiritual shower and am all clean again. I once had a spiritual director who always started with how's your prayer life so I think about that first. Then I think about what sins are most serious of the ones I commit and those are the ones I confess. I am really sad about having moved because Notre Dame has confession every weekday and they always stay until everyone's done with multiple priests and one line so you never know who you are going to get but it always seems to be the right priest for the moment.
I find it helpful, when reading Dark Night of the Soul, in English, alas my only option, to remember that most of the time, "soul" means a human person having two parts: The body flesh sensory memory understanding part, and the spirit part, where our will, which covers our capacity to love, not so much resides, but "is," (being our common ground with and in God, and God in us.) Best stated as, "God IS Love." (And the Will of God is Love.) BTW
Since Spirit is understood to have no parts, the notion of a soul (us) having parts can only mean that soul and spirit do NOT mean the same thing. Except when, due to the quirks of English and not necessarily innocent translations into English, sometimes "soul" does refer to spirit without parts, moving or otherwise. This is fortunately, or not, a special case category to be mentioned in the Bible footnotes.
Anyway, it took me awhile to get my understanding faculty up to speed here, so as to sort the flesh from the spirit. (Most of what we think of as mind, if one is so cursed, is emotion feeling memory understanding imagination intuition feeling thinking. All temporal, if that helps. Meanwhile, we have an emergent and forever emerging "will" to love and to become love as God is Love. "Will" as noun and verb. Will in this special sense as defining our spirt component creatively joined to this material body. This person that was created as very good, at least until we messed up, and find ourselves, wounded and all that in a no longer perfectly good creation.
I allotted myself an hour. Now exceeded. I should like to come back and compose a book, but time is short. I will confess that for many years; while not journaling, I did aspire to write novels. (If Stephen King can do it, might I not do better? Apparently not.) Long story short, I did put eight novels through at least three drafts. All of which I destroyed when I understood that I could not resist the temptation to try again. Sometimes one may amend one's life in a major way and for the wrong reasons. Casting off what is not God is not enough. This not-God IS NOTHING. A meaningless sacrifice. One must take on what is God, which is EVERYTHING and pure meaning.
John goes from looking at nature to thinking about the creator of such a beautiful world and how awesome He must be. I go from looking at creation and thinking it and I are close to the same level to let's all praise God together. I'm impressed by his detachment from the physical world so he can be completely attached only to God. I can understand how he gets there but I question whether I ever could. Gratitude for the gifts, yes, but to have that kind of detachment from them would take a miracle from God. It's completely beyond me.
I have been playing the organ/piano for my parish as soon as I got my hands worked up well enough to try it. The reason I play is because the parish needed an organist although I'm really a pianist so I am basically doing it for the parish. Sometimes I also do it to praise God, sometimes I do it when I'm terrified of messing up (although that is disappearing as I get more experience and am less self-conscious about what I'm doing). I know if I were playing completely with my focus on Jesus it would go so smoothly. Get out of the way and let God is true in this as in so many things. Let Him use me and everything will work together for good because I do love Him in my feeble human way. But there you are.
Yes it is doing good. Confession is my favorite sacrament because I always feel like I've just taken a spiritual shower and am all clean again. I once had a spiritual director who always started with how's your prayer life so I think about that first. Then I think about what sins are most serious of the ones I commit and those are the ones I confess. I am really sad about having moved because Notre Dame has confession every weekday and they always stay until everyone's done with multiple priests and one line so you never know who you are going to get but it always seems to be the right priest for the moment.
Beautiful reflection, Bridget! Love the “prized idiot” description!
I find it helpful, when reading Dark Night of the Soul, in English, alas my only option, to remember that most of the time, "soul" means a human person having two parts: The body flesh sensory memory understanding part, and the spirit part, where our will, which covers our capacity to love, not so much resides, but "is," (being our common ground with and in God, and God in us.) Best stated as, "God IS Love." (And the Will of God is Love.) BTW
Since Spirit is understood to have no parts, the notion of a soul (us) having parts can only mean that soul and spirit do NOT mean the same thing. Except when, due to the quirks of English and not necessarily innocent translations into English, sometimes "soul" does refer to spirit without parts, moving or otherwise. This is fortunately, or not, a special case category to be mentioned in the Bible footnotes.
Anyway, it took me awhile to get my understanding faculty up to speed here, so as to sort the flesh from the spirit. (Most of what we think of as mind, if one is so cursed, is emotion feeling memory understanding imagination intuition feeling thinking. All temporal, if that helps. Meanwhile, we have an emergent and forever emerging "will" to love and to become love as God is Love. "Will" as noun and verb. Will in this special sense as defining our spirt component creatively joined to this material body. This person that was created as very good, at least until we messed up, and find ourselves, wounded and all that in a no longer perfectly good creation.
I allotted myself an hour. Now exceeded. I should like to come back and compose a book, but time is short. I will confess that for many years; while not journaling, I did aspire to write novels. (If Stephen King can do it, might I not do better? Apparently not.) Long story short, I did put eight novels through at least three drafts. All of which I destroyed when I understood that I could not resist the temptation to try again. Sometimes one may amend one's life in a major way and for the wrong reasons. Casting off what is not God is not enough. This not-God IS NOTHING. A meaningless sacrifice. One must take on what is God, which is EVERYTHING and pure meaning.