mystery

“Love is an endless mystery, because there is no reasonable cause that could explain it.”
Rabindranath Tagore

(Moses by Michelangelo / Basilica di San Pietro in Vincoli /Rome / Julie Cook 2018)

“A sculptor who wishes to carve a figure out of a block uses his chisel,
first cutting away great chunks of marble, then smaller pieces,
until he finally reaches a point where only a brush of hand is needed
to reveal the figure. In the same way, the soul has to undergo
tremendous mortifications at first, and then more refined detachments,
until finally its Divine image is revealed.
Because mortification is recognized as a practice of death,
there is fittingly inscribed on the tomb of Duns Scotus**, Bis Mortus; Semel Sepultus
(twice died, but buried only once).
When we die to something, something comes alive within us.
If we die to self, charity comes alive;
if we die to pride, service comes alive;
if we die to lust, reverence for personality comes alive;
if we die to anger, love comes alive.”
Fulton J. Sheen, p. 219
An Excerpt From
Peace of Soul
(**John Duns OFM, commonly called Duns Scotus, was a Scottish Catholic priest
and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher, and theologian.
He is one of the three most important philosopher-theologians of
Western Europe in the High Middle Ages, together with
Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham. Wikipedia)

So the other day I posted one of my more short and sweet offerings…
When time is scarce, I rely on a good picture and a couple,
of what I think to be, pointed quotes.
Most often the quotes offered are by the Saints, Christian theologians,
Christian authors and or Christian mystics.

And so it was on a recent day when I posted a quote by C. S. Lewis:
“In the old days, when there was less education and discussion,
perhaps it was possible to get on with a very few simple ideas about God.
But it is not so now. Everyone reads, everyone hears things discussed.
Consequently, if you do not listen to Theology,
that will not mean that you have no ideas about God.
It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones—bad,
muddled, out-of-date ideas. For a great many of the ideas about God
which are trotted out as novelties today are simply
the ones which real Theologians tried centuries ago and rejected.”
C. S. Lewis, p. 155
An Excerpt From
Mere Christianity

that I received the following comment:

“In the old days, when there was less education and discussion,”

This was true in regards to both theological and knowledge of everything
but I believe that is the only part the great writer Lewis got
right in this quote.

Theology has not changed, the stories and traditions are basically
exactly the same today but likely more complicated than when they
were created but the general knowledge of our world has
increased dramatically.

We have the massive advancement in both scientific knowledge
and increased educational opportunities that have accumulated mostly
over the last two hundred years, this has cost all religions dearly
in a decline of power especially in first world industrialised countries.

As there is now more freedom of thought there are answers
that explain what we experience in the light of reality without
any supernatural input.

Well, I’ve not had a chance to respond to this particular commenter but
thought I could maybe take a little time now in order to do so…

The picture above is a marble statue carved using the famed Carrara marble
of Carrara, Italy. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrara_marble)

The statue was carved by the famed Italian artist Michelangelo…
a statue of Moses that was to adorn the one-day tomb of Pope Julius II.

Pope Julius and Michelangelo had quite the love-hate relationship.
It was this same Pope that sent his guards to bring back the
run-away artist who tried to skip out on his Sistine Chapel project…
but I digress.

Isn’t this just an amazing piece of craftsmanship?
Do you see the veins and tendons in the muscular arm of Moses?

(Julie Cook / 2018)

(Julie Cook 2018)

When I was in Girl Scouts, we were given a bar of soap and were to use our
trusty Girl Scout knife in order to carve something out of the soap.

Despite my grandiose hopes of carving out a bear, I think I managed to
have a whittled pile of soap shavings.

So to be able to see something in a massive chunk of rock and to then,
with only hands, hammer and chisel–with no modern electric or technological
assistance in order to bring forth “life” is, to me, simply amazing.

It is a gift.
Not a rote learned skill…
Now whereas it does indeed take skill to be such a craftsman,
it also takes much more.
It takes vision…seeing that which lies within…
And it also takes something that borders upon the mystical.

Life breathed into a handful of dust….

So our friend’s comment today speaks of both knowledge and understanding.
Noting that each one has more or less come steamrolling in within the
last 200 some odd years…but I dare say it all really took off during
the day’s of Michelangelo…the age of the Renaissance…
and by gosh, it hasn’t dared stop to look back.
Think the Age of Reason…the Age of Enlightenment…
The Industrial Revolution…Post Modernism, Post Christianity…

Whereas we greatly pride our 21st century selves on our breadth,
depth and scope of knowledge…there are, contrary to popular belief,
a few truths that remain…despite man’s dire
attempts to counter it all with his / her hubris and arrogance.

“Supernatural input” our friend notes.

Yet, despite the argument that we are so advanced and now know
all there is to know, there actually remain certain truths…

Take Biology for instance…
I would think Biology is one said truth.

Male.
Female.
Egg.
Sperm.
Conception.
Birth.
Life.
Death.

And yet, therein lies the mystery.

Conception / birth / life / death…

Sure there are miscues and misfires.

There are anomalies.
There are exceptions
There are mysteries.

But that does not diminish the truth.

Male.
Female.
Conception.
Birth.
Life.
Death.

Our friend speaks of a “freedom of thought giving way to answers that explain
what we experience in light of our reality…”

Hummmm.

Thought does not necessarily equate to reality…does it?

This particular individual speaks of the supernatural no longer being necessary…
but if it is “super” as well as natural…then is that not a mystery in itself?
That which remains rooted in that of the unknown?

And so as I consider today’s quote by Archbishop Fulton Sheen,
I marvel.
Our lives are not so readily written off as compartmentalized
reason now are they?

“When we die to something, something comes alive within us.
If we die to self, charity comes alive;
if we die to pride, service comes alive;
if we die to lust, reverence for personality comes alive;
if we die to anger, love comes alive…”

a commandment is as only good as it is kept, or is it?

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like
if Moses had run them through the US Congress.
Ronald Reagan

I’ve written a little about the 10 Commandments before….
Actually it was back in the Spring after having watched an interview with Lauren Green
the chief Religion correspondent with Fox News.

At the time Lauren had a new book out,
Lighthouse Faith: God as a Living Reality in a World Immersed in Fog

As I stated back in May…. Lauren explains the title of her book as being based
on the concept of the Ten Commandments.
She notes that “here you have a seminal point found in the very first commandment…”
“You shall have no other gods before Me.”

Lauren goes on to explain that by breaking commandants 2-10, you will always
have broken 1.
As number 1 is the pinnacle that everything else descends from.
A very academic and legal approach to looking at how we are to be living our lives…

And as this culture of ours which prides itself on being all about
academic advancements and of all things exceedingly legal,
you’d think we’d be all about some commandments…
but it turns out that we are not all about commandments, particularly those
Ten Commandments and especially those first 4.

The above picture showed up last night in a text message from a friend.
She had snapped the picture of the article from a periodical her husband
subscribes to and wanted to pass on the dismal tale to me.

The article is about a recent study conducted of folks, both those who consider
themselves Christians and those who don’t, there in the UK and of their current
feelings regarding the Ten Commandments.

Now the UK was founded as a Christian nation…
you know,—for love of God, King and Country…
or in the current case, that would be Queen.
Of course we had William the Conquerer in 1066 but it actually goes back to
601 with Æthelberht of Kent who was recognized as the first Christian baptized
leader of the Anglo-Saxon England that shaped a nation into what it is today…
a secular swirling mess.

Yet it was always known that God was at the top, followed by the Monarchy…
so the monarchy certainly had a higher Commander in Chief to be answering to—
and some monarchs did a great job with that and some were utterly abysmal.
But such is the nature of fickled humans and leadership.

It should be noted that in our most modern times, we have witnessed a deep
secularization taking place across all of Europe…
aka, most of West Civilization—as it is happening in Australia, Canada, and certainly here in the US

A recent study revealed that the most “Christian” nation that remains on the soil
of the European continent would be Poland…
and that little fact is certainly being pushed to its limits as the drive continues
fast and furiously for all nations to get on the progressive modernism bandwagon
by legalizing same sex marriages.

Church attendance across the European landscape is at a record low.
As there are many who now wonder as to relativeness of the institution of “Church”

This is not just a European problem…..

Here’s the thing—in our most progressive society, we all,
as in our current modern-day society, are all about rendering the God of said
Commandments null and void.

Most of our leading academics and politicians see no relevance in the notion of
not only Christianity, but more aptly, God himself.
Matters not that He commanded that we shall have no other gods…we’ve just been
so busy with our own myriad of little gods that we haven’t had much time to consider
anyone else as being greater or bigger than our narrow little world.

So whereas reading these latest statistics is rather dismal, I am reminded all
is not lost, all is not hopeless.
I think it will be vastly important in the days, weeks, months and even years to come
that we the Faithful maintain the importance of the Commandments…not in some sort
of self righteous and almost martyristique sort of fashion but rather with a
focused and purposeful intent.

For our example of demonstratively living will be scrutinized…
while the question will remain…
are we willing to live our Commandments, with number one being the pinnacle…
truly living it as a clear and visible living example of obedience….??

“You shall have no other gods before Me.
Exodus 20:3

taking it down to the foundation

Most things can be born with a sense of the presence of God,
and very little can be born without it.
Gavin Ashenden

“The last thing that those of the top of the pyramid want is to see that
pyramid inverted! In a Western world which is increasingly dominated by an
anti-Christ secularism it’s maybe not a bad thing when those in power seek
to silence the church because we are too dangerous!”
David Robertson

(the current condition of my shower / Julie Cook / 2017)

The other day, I wrote a post based on a news feed coming out of England regarding a college within the Oxford University system that had opted to deny an on-campus
Christian organization from participating in a welcoming fair for the incoming
freshman class.

Our friend the good Scottish Pastor David Robertson has weighed in on the same
news story and since he is on that side of the pond,
I thought he might have a better perspective
than I had…so I’ve included the link below allowing you to read his close
and personal perspective.

A Dangerous Church? The Elephant in the Balliol College Freshers Fair

I’ve been known to often quote both David Robertson and Gavin Ashenden,
Christian clerics of vastly different denominations, because each man has a crystal
clear vision of what is ailing not only our world but, even more, what is ailing
our very own Christian faith.

Each man brings a wealth of academic prowess, real world experience and battle tested
war wounds as they each express this plight or ours oh so succinctly.

There are many in the fold who cannot see, or who actually refuse to see, the growing
and even sinister trouble gnawing at our collective Church.
For you see…the now unavoidable decline of Western Civilization,
the growing notion of progressivism, the pandemic of post modernism coupled with denominational infighting are each sounding a death knell….
and the thing is….
nobody is really listening….

Let’s change the subject slightly…..

Twenty years ago when we built our house, my husband acted as contractor.
He had a good many friends in the building business so he solicited their
expertise while overseeing the whole operation.
The only area in this building process that he did not know anyone was in the
department of laying tile.
We had to go off of recommendations…
more or less choosing the lesser of evils as our area,
at the time, did not have a lot of choice as far as tile was concerned.

We saw right off the bat that things were not going to go as we would expect or like.
In fact half way finished we parted ways with the company of which went out of
business shortly thereafter.

Our shower in the master bath has had problems with leaking from the get go.
We’ve patched and patched till we can patch no more. Chiseling out grout,
re-grouting, sealing, re-sealing…at one point water had seeped under the floor into
our closet, buckling the wood floor.
Finally in desperation my husband recently asked a customer of his who
is a long time tile man–asking him to please come look at our quandary
and see what he could do.

The only fix…
tear it all out and start over.

Sigh.

Have you ever had to have a jack hammer in your house?
In your bathroom?
Well we now have.

Once he removed a ledge, he found about two inches of water sitting hidden underneath
the tile floor.
With the water shopvaced out, the jack hammer finished loosening the grout,
tile and thin-set as a nice layer of masonry dust now covered my world.
1800 pounds of debris, tile, wood, tile board and cement was hauled out of the house.

We had put down drop cloths, plastic sheeting, hung barriers against doors…
but the dust has been relentless.

Currently, we’re down to the base studs with several areas of wood having to be
replaced due to water rot.
The plumber is due out Monday, then soon the re-tiling can begin.

Twenty years of slow leaks, standing water with no way of evaporation,
and I just might have ended up in the basement, while showering,
dropping through a rotten floor.

I relay this little tale of woe because it reminds me very much of what we are
witnessing in the collective Christian Church.

Things started out solid and sure.
There was a strong base and foundation built literally with the blood, sweat and
even the very lives of the faithful.

But over time, really unbeknownst to the obvious, things began to creep in and
erode what was there.
Power, fame, ego, pride, corruption, translation disputes, schisms and heresies…
add to that the army of the unbelieving who are led by our ancient Adversary,
as they work to weedle away at what remains…

All while we’ve ignored the signs.

We’ve missed the growing mold, the erosions, the leaks….
The facade still looks ok but underneath is now barely supporting itself.

It’s time to strip things down to the very foundation…
and in order to do that, we need those who are willing to do the dirty hard work.
Otherwise what you’ve taken for granted is going to implode upon itself..
leaving you standing in an unfamiliar place wondering what the heck just happened.

…built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus
himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined
together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord.
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which
God lives by his Spirit.
Ephesians 2:20-22