grey

“It is by no means an irrational fancy that,
in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our
present existence, as a dream.”
Edgar Allan Poe

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”
L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

“When you strip away all the layers one by one, not much remains to “discover.”
You will never find real meaning among your selfish interests,
feelings, and aspirations.
The answers do not lie within you.”
James C. Dobson, Life on the Edge:
The Next Generation’s Guide to a Meaningful Future

(Colonial Cemetery Savannah, GA / Julie Cook/ 2021)

(the current photograph needed some sort of introspection from the past, my past–
so I found a post I’d written in 2017— and with a bit or re-working,
we have a new post)

Death…
the one true absolute…

Absolute.

Dictionary.com tells us that as a noun, absolute is
something that is not dependent upon external conditions for existence
or for its specific nature, size—
the absolute,
something that is free from any restriction or condition.
something that is independent of some or all relations.
something that is perfect or complete./em>

And so what is it about man and his need for absolutes??
The need for that which is..and that which is without exception?

Black or white.

Black the absence of light.
White the excess of all light.

Light.
Dark.

Definitive.

And yet many still cling to the nature of grey…
a space somewhere in between all that we know of absolutes.

Grey being the equal mix of both black and white—a place
of somewhere other than an absolute.

A blend of known and unknown.

There are those skeptics among us who would dare to argue
over the definitive nature of, say, death…

Is it or is it not a definitive end?

Some say yes..while others say no–there must be more.

So on one hand, these grey individuals can be heard to rile against those others,
those who espouse in absolutes…
“be damned you fools” those who relish in grey will shout,
“for we will not live by such pronouncements…”

And yet man continues to test and retest in order to
hold triumphantly a handful of litmus papers of absolute proof…
that being the definitive definer…
man will fiercely hold up those stained papers as sacred proof of his
needs and wants.

All the while ancient voices remind us…
Thou shall have no other gods but the Lord your God…

Absolute…

Yet we know that man hordes a thousand other gods.
Clinging and clutching tightly to the fading fancies of his whims.

Thou shall cherish and love life and thou shall honor and love one
unto another just as you would wish to be cherished,
honored and loved.

Absolute.

Yet man will prefer to fight, hurt, murder, slander, defile,
maim and destroy not only others, but himself as well,
as life and the living have lost all holiness…

For man has proclaimed himself his own god…

And thus it is man who extols that which is right and that which is wrong.
No litmus papers needed for that proclamation.
No black nor white…merely a triumph of grey.

And since man is never satisfied with his choices for very long,
he will just as quickly turn each proclamation upside down,
in order to suit the latest craving or longing…
because nothing remains scared,
nothing remains holy
and nothing remains true…
So dare we say nothing remains absolute.

And thus the only absolute in the mind of man is that there
are no absolutes…only grey.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—
his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2

we must prove we are one…

“It is not that I want merely to be called a Christian, but to actually be one.
Yes, if I prove to be one, then I can have the name.”
St. Ignatius of Antioch

(St Peter the Martyr carving on a door in the Biltmore House, a hidden doorway / Julie Cook / 2020)

“He does not come down from Heaven each day to stay in the gold ciborium.
He comes down to find another Heaven He cherishes infinitely more than the first,
the Heaven of our souls, made in His image, living temples of the Most Blessed Trinity!”
St. Therese of Lisieux, p. 31
An Excerpt From
Meditations with the Little Flower

animal or angel

“To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one,
not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries;
avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.
It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

(Marc Chagall / Cow with a Parasol / 1944)

In his Second Sunday before Lent homily, Bishop Ashenden puts before us the notion
of the identity of Jesus.

Who Jesus really is.

He notes that no one—not Buddha, not Mohammad, not Abraham, nor Moses…
none of these individuals ever professed to be God…

But that Jesus was different.

He did claim to be the Son of God…and in turn God.
That He was in the Father and the Father was in Him.
(John 14:11)

Yet Bishop Ashenden notes that our culture does not teach that Jesus is or was any
different from anyone else.
And also notes that none of us can actually prove what Jesus did.
We only have the written word…no tangible proof that shows the world definitive proof
of this or that.

And so we are left asking ourselves…
why were these things done the way that they were done and
why had these things been done and said even in the first place?

The good Bishop notes the words of C.S. Lewis when Lewis referenced man and choice…
that the choice of man is to be either animal or angel—or more aptly, animal or saint.

For in animals we are all similar in that we are born of both male and female.
And from that… man is then born of consciousness/ brain/mind…
with his conscious being the separator between man and animal…
as some may even dispute that…

So thus, by the conscious being of his conscience, man (us) has the capacity to
become children of God.
The choice between dust or to live eternally.

And so comes Jesus to show how humanly conscious choice is put into practice.

For the Children of God are born not only from man and woman but also from
the Holy Spirit.

And yet even worse than the animals…man, with his consciousness, can, therefore,
choose to become demonic…
because man can consciously choose malice, anger, rage, hatred, damage…all things which
are demonic versus that of The Spirit.

And so Jesus, as God made man…demonstrated that Love was never designed to be kept
to self…but to be freely offered and given…that which counters the demonic…

“Humans are amphibians…half spirit and half animal…as spirits they belong to the eternal world,
but as animals they inhabit time.
This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object,
their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time,
means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation–
the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back,
a series of troughs and peaks.”
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

The Scandal

(Winter Rouge Wallflowers / Julie Cook / 2014)

The Scandal of Pious People
The lowly God-man is the scandal of pious people and of people in general.
This scandal is his historical ambiguity.
The most incomprehensible thing for the pious is this man’s claim that he is not
only a pious human being but also the Son of God.
Whence his authority: “But I say to you” (Matt. 5:22) and “Your sins are forgiven” (Matt. 9:2).
If Jesus’ nature had been deified, this claim would have been accepted.
If he had given signs, as was demanded of him, they would have believed him.
But at the point where it really mattered, he held back.
And that created the scandal.
Yet everything depends on this fact.
If he had answered the Christ question addressed to him through a miracle, then the statement would no longer be true that he became a human being like us, for then there would have been an exception at the decisive point. . . .
If Christ had documented himself with miracles, we would naturally believe, but then Christ would not be our salvation, for then there would not be faith in God who became human, but only the recognition of an alleged supernatural fact.
But that is not faith. . . .
Only when I forgo visible proof, do I believe in God.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I Want to Live These Days With You
A year of Daily Devotions
Entry taken from March 19th
(emphasis mine)