Beyond the Coin

The following post is inspired by an article I read from Ravi Zacharias International. I usually get these in my daily email but rarely have the time to read through them but a friend resent this article to me and it really gave me a lot to think about. The article centers around this poem to which I will respond with thoughts of my own and that, reinforced by the article.

"The Apologist's Evening Prayer."

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die. (1)



For the rationalist or the TJ as defined by Myers Briggs, it is easy for our thoughts to replace the reality of God just as these words I write may be the replacement for the quality of relationship that I ought to have with God. I may think of God but if there lacks the connection between the mind and the heart then it causes a pride to think we have it figured out. I use "It" as the general term for everything there needs to be known about existence from myself to the entirety of existence both subjectively and objectively.

As much as we wrestle with our thoughts of the Divine to understand and take one step closer to God, without the recognition that we need to allow these thoughts to transform into the intangible quality that transcends our thoughts whereby, only can we truly experience and enter into God's presence. Our thoughts along with any other form of expression in thought or some other means are only the means, the vehicle if you will, to take us to that place where we are able to meet God. The rest is up to the Will and the Desire to allow the Divine to encounter us that leaves us forever changed, removing what we once thought we knew how to get there and leaves us in awe and changed, not become more fearful; rather, more humbled and amazed at the Divine Love that embraced Death to give us Life.

Isaiah 6.

Darkness Part 1

I am writing this as a reflection to a short essay a dear friend of mine wrote. This idea of darkness is one that is so core to our existence. Darkness:the absence of light. On a more metaphorical level, darkness is the absence of certainty of our environment and an exposition of our vulnerability.

Perhaps it is in darkness we truly realize the core of our very existence: we are dependent beings. It is in darkness we are stripped of vision and thrust into uncertainty. For those of us who may argue that how they may certain in life and every moment has always been an anticipated one. They are always seeing things in a certain light and perhaps claim ignorantly that they will always know what is happening based on their intellect and experience. Yet, I still argue how one can account for the rest of the world who have not experienced this certainty? Would it not be true if we could always be in control and certain in our destiny, then all we know as pain and suffering would then disappear? I think the very existence of the thing we know as darkness, reflects that very certain idea of uncertainty: it reminds us of our condition as dependant beings.

As much as we are uncertain in darkness, we are also certain that in darkness, the more of it there is, the more safe we can feel and perhaps even somewhat blissful in our ignorance. In the presence of minimal light however, we are thrown into uncertainty. Perhaps in our lives, we always have some sort of light and that we do know. Perhaps it is innate inside of us that lets us differentiate this dark and light. It scares us because this light, although minimal, creates silhouettes of things in our lives into horrible monsters when in fact, only , in light that these things reveal themselves to be less horrible. This is where we retreat further into the darkness if we do not know where to intensify this light. Ironic we will feel safe in this darkness.

I will continue this thought later on.

Response to pain

I believe there are two ways to respond to pain.
1) we make ourselves victim to life and make ourselves believe that nothing ever good comes out of life. As a result, we miss the amazing things that remind us there are still things that are beautiful. We forget what is beauty.
OR

2) we see our pain as a catalyst to open our eyes to things that are beautiful and to see the beauty in the pain. It makes us see the things that will be waiting if we choose.
Nothing says it better than the Cross of Jesus Christ: Divinity taking on humanity's pain to make it beautiful. This is your life, are you who you want to be.

This is your choice. This is your life.

Pursuit of Love

In the pursuit of love, there is often a giving of beauty in order to win the affections of the pursued. Flowers are usually one of such many gifts along with diamonds and precious jewels. Is it in the ephemeral quality of objects that exhibit rarity that the pursued succumbs to the pursurer? Does this appreciation of nature go back to the origins of humanity? Or is it a by-product of the consumer nature of our society that beautiful things are rare and one must sacrifice time/money/blood to acheive these things for the beloved?

Have flowers always been something that has been given to the woman? This idea of giving to win affection is one that is so deeply rooted in our reason for being human. We are always looking for acceptance, looking to be loved. Whether by another or by our own self perception, to some degree, we give something either to ourselves to make ourselves more notable - to make ourselves.. worthy.

Perhaps I have lost myself in trying to understand the reasons for things and maybe it is one of those things I do not need to really understand but already innately, understand.


To love is to perhaps sacrifice self and to make things perfect- at least try to make things for the beloved as perfect as it can. Maybe it involves a non-reciprocal love. Is that worth it at all? Maybe. In the words of Yeats:

"ALL things uncomely and broken, all things worn out and old,
The cry of a child by the roadway, the creak of a lumbering cart,
The heavy steps of the ploughman, splashing the wintry mould,
Are wronging your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart.

The wrong of unshapely things is a wrong too great to be told;
I hunger to build them anew and sit on a green knoll apart,
With the earth and the sky and the water, re-made, like a casket of gold
For my dreams of your image that blossoms a rose in the deeps of my heart. "

Frustration

I do not believe in true independence. I think there is always something to depend on. Human beings were created to be dependent. I speak of dependence as an overall thing. I cannot therefore claim indepednence on my own existence because i depend on air to breathe- on the farmers to make the food grow, and to seek my purpose in life. It is frustrating to not know how to depend and to try to depend on what I think I know. If only I could truly be independent. Which meant surviving without the means to have to survive and surviving would no longer be a verb but just be a part of what I am.
It is frustrating to grapple with the idea that I choose my destiny but at the same time, as much as I can predict the pattern of what might happen, I still do not know because one will always be trying to adapt to the situation in thinking that we are making the situation adapt to us. Perhaps it is about conforming our souls to the harsh realities of this life instead of conforming reality to what we want it to be. Unfortunately in a world of pluralism and relativsm where you and I are correct, this reality becomes convulted because your shades of white and black are not the same as mine. If it were, life would be much simpler; instead, we are left with shades of gray.

Creation

In the event of imagination, we create whether we like it or not. We create fear. We create love. We create life. We create death. It is the thing that makes us human. Can animals express their feelings in a manner other than noise and grunting? Could human thought have ever transcended to its present state without the voice of imagination?

Pain

Do our pains matter to us and if pain is a result of human pride and i focus on the more significant issues of life, does that mean i am dealing with it or avoiding it? If life is about perspective, then am i achieving selflessness but rationalizing that my pains are insignificant to those of someone else who is suffering so much more and that it is my duty to alleviate that?