Posted on 12/31/2001 8:37:03 PM PST by Askel5
That shadow is real enough ... it can kill some for lack of light, send a chill through others and even tempt some to use it as handy cover of sorts for those actions or thoughts they'd just as soon not see the light of day.
It's still only real for being a shadow, though. It has no substance save in the choice of the will to tilt ... and exists only for so long as the crooked can be made -- by whatever props they can muster -- to stand thus.
Happy New Year, guy. All the best to you and yours in the coming year.
In the great divorce, Lewis says that there is a way station between here and heaven, and you can make up for your life on earth in this place. It's like a deathbed confession, but supersized. Your life on earth isn't worth a+bert's liver.
Now, I may have missed some allegory, metaphor, symbolism, swedenborgianism, or hey-nanny-nanny. (I'm still trying to figure out your analysis of the race between the tortoise and the little engine that could.) But it seems to make things a bit too easy.
In the spirit of CSLewis, a hands-on, shirt-sleeve apologist who never dodged a direct question, can you talk about that?
By the way, the many worlds theory is only one of more than a dozen philosophy-of-physics ideas about quantum mechanics. If you like spooky stuff, also check out Bell's inequality.
Note:
"Can you talk about that?" was an ivy-league way of asking a question without being too direct or limiting and without asking (shudder) an "incorrect question."
ping
Would that be anything like "compassionate conservatism"?
This is good theology, from the Orthodox POV, which focuses more intently than Western Christians on the restoration of a fallen cosmos, transfigured through the Resurrection. This is what it means to be living no longer in a dispensation of Law, but one of Grace. Sin is no longer the transgression of a legal code; it is alienation from God. Since God is everywhere, that place where God is absent must be no-place, nothingless, non-being. Hell, as Lewis rightly observes, must be very small indeed.
Quenot puts it thus:
“The fault of Adam stems fundamentally from a lack of love, which destroys communion with God. His willful submission to the temptation to power and to envy turned him into a predator who could no longer see the value in a creation directed toward the praise of God. Rather, he could regard creation only as an object of consumption. Ingratitude toward God was thereby aggravated by profaning of the cosmos that transformed creation into a mere material object...
“The expression, ‘kingdom of Satan’ is a misnomer, since the supreme imposter is the incarnation of evil, the source of death, meaning nothingness. We are forced to use words to express the reality of hell, a place of darkness and, consequently, of death. Life, on the other hand, together with any authentic personal encounter, requires light.”
It would appear that we’ve been using different tools to get to the same destination. As Flannery O’Connor observes, “Everything that Rises Must Converge.”
Nope ... I'm delighted, actually, given my historical bases for comparison in this regard. I know scary.In the great divorce, Lewis says that there is a way station between here and heaven, and you can make up for your life on earth in this place. It's like a deathbed confession, but supersized. Your life on earth isn't worth a+bert's liver.
Well, given that the one's objective, the obstacles yet to surmount -- and the graces at one's disposal -- once a soul's reached the station are the exact sum of his life on earth, I think the here and now life on earth turns out to be very important.If I could make one observation ... and draw on another one or two of my favorite theological fantasies while doing so, since we are in that purely hypothetical realm.
This way station of Lewis's seems characterized by one important thing: the forgiveness and helping hand offered each shade by that person who probably knew him best, desired him most or was hurt by him the deepest.
I think therein's the key to the "grey area" that puzzles you. I maintain, ad infinitum, that the natural moral is every bit as real as the natural law but only seems relative in that an adulterer or thief or liar does not get the instant correction meted to one who thinks to ignore the laws of gravity or force.
It's a cushion provided not only to ease the learning curve but ... more important ... allow for forgiveness. What with creation's appearing to have a heart of sorts in this respect, it's only natural that we should abide by what we know to be true by the powers of our observation and operation of our reason.
While it's entirely the decision of the individual to shake off the sleep of dead, board the bus out of the familiar world and ultimately choose to forsake what sin or regret holds them captive ... it's in the forging of the lifeline that is human family -- a bond of friendship or desire -- that one is best equipped to make that final break. It takes trust in another to shed the comfortable shoe that is the imperfect Self and it's love that'll ease the pain of one's break with the past. Witness the initial softening of Scrooge's heart when he remembers that, indeed, once upon a time he was loved and wanted.
Dante doesn't actually cross the river of Lethe until he's made it through purgatory. He's got a decided distance from the damned (however hot may be his anger or fond his feelings for some) and he's likewise somewhat distanced from those in Heaven (their eyes being far too powerful for him and their focus no longer so much on one another as it is the center of the mystical rose).
It's in the way station that is purgatory, then, that teamwork's the thing ... strengthening each other, praying for each other and helping each other round the mountain.
A world conditioned to exacting Justice for itself (via capital punishment, the cutting of ties to the perpetually disappointing and the sloughing off of the burdensome), it become difficult to understand that our final court of appeal may indeed rest in the forgiveness, first, of those upon whom we trespassed.
I think this is a great part of the Church's teaching where intercession is concerned. Particularly that of the Mother of God who needs not the prayers we offer for the dead but indeed, in her mother's love, can indeed petition on our behalf despite our utter failure to know and love and serve her Son.
Now, I may have missed some allegory, metaphor, symbolism, swedenborgianism, or hey-nanny-nanny. (I'm still trying to figure out your analysis of the race between the tortoise and the little engine that could.) But it seems to make things a bit too easy.
Too easy? Not when you remember that it's in this life, through the glass darkly, that we decide exactly how great shall be our challenge and our deep shall be the bonds of those who'll help us surmount same.Swedeborgianism, eh? I could have sworn the "great belaborer" epithet stemmed from your actually having read the book. =)
| Then vertigo and terror seized me and, clutching at my Teacher, I said, "Is that the truth? Then is all that I have been seeing in this country false? These conversations between the Spirits and the Ghosts -- were they only the mimicry of choices that had really been made long ago?" "Or might ye not as well say, anticipation of a choice to be made at the end of all things? Bur ye'd do better to say neither. Ye saw the choices a bit more clearly than ye could see them on earth: the lens was clearer. But it was still through the lens. Do not ask of a vision in a dream more than a vision in a dream can give." "A dream? Then -- then -- am I not really here, Sir?" "No, Son," said he kindly, taking my hand in his. "It is not so good as that. The bitter drink of death is still before you. Ye are only dreaming. And if ye come to tell of what ye have seen, make it plain that it was but a dream. See ye make it very plain. Give no poor fool the pretext to think ye are claiming knowledge of what no poor mortal knows. I'll have no Swedenborgs and no Vale Owens among my children." "God forbid, Sir," said I, trying to look very wise. "He has forbidden it. That's what I'm telling ye." As he said this he looked more Scotch than ever. |
By the way, the many worlds theory is only one of more than a dozen philosophy-of-physics ideas about quantum mechanics. If you like spooky stuff, also check out Bell's inequality.
It was still above my head last time I gave it a try. We shall see what's glistened in the glass bead drop of water since then ...In the spirit of CSLewis, a hands-on, shirt-sleeve apologist who never dodged a direct question, can you talk about that? Note: "Can you talk about that?" was an ivy-league way of asking a question without being too direct or limiting and without asking (shudder) an "incorrect question."
Lol ... did you doubt it for a moment? You might consider the direct question if you wish the pithy answer to ANYTHING.P.S. Don't let the "I think I can" of the little train that could fool you. His gift is faith and the knowing that he can do it. Those who think too much are liable to rationalize bribing a conducter, taking a shortcut so as to afford themselves a bit of leisure or refusing to help another along the way lest showing some kindness or greatness of heart get in the way of whatever they've decided shall make them a true success.
BLECH ...
This must be the bit of charity by which Bush has rationalized the manufacture and sale of human children to ease the pain of the barren woman or the homosexual couple. This must be his use of already-been-killed embryos in a bid that the "hopeful technology" that is using human lives like mulch will hit some paydirt in the fight against disease.
This must be his perfect record of NO CLEMENCY so that the capital punishment of the condemned will somehow comfort the surviving victims of their crimes.
No ... true "compassion" is Suffering WITH ... not excusing some end run around the Moral Law to make it all better in Utopia.
Therein lies the dead-giveway that is the utter enormity of lowering the bar -- accomodating the Lowest Common Denominator always -- in some effort to appease all "personal values" or accede to the Convergence that figures so prominently in the long-range planning of the Leninists ... the Chosen People of the Anti-Christ known as the Narodnaya Volya or "The People's Will".
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There is, for instance, one such poem (of course, from the Greek), The Wanderings of Our Lady through Hell, with descriptions as bold as Dante's. Our Lady visits hell, and the Archangel Michael leads her through the torments. She sees the sinners and their punishment.
There she sees among others one noteworthy set of sinners in a burning lake; some of them sink to the bottom of the lake so that they can't swim out, and 'these God forgets' -- an expression of extraordinary depth and force. And so Our Lady, shocked and weeping, falls before the throne of God and begs for mercy for all in hell -- for all she has seen there, indiscriminately.
Her conversation with God is immensely interesting. She beseeches Him, she will not desist, and when God points to the hands and feet of her Son, nailed to the Cross, and asks, 'How can I forgive His tormentors?' she bids all the saints, all the martyrs, all the angels and archangels to fall down with her and pray for mercy on all without distinction. It ends by her winning from God a respite of suffering every year from Good Friday till Trinity Day, and the sinners at once raise a cry of thankfulness from hell, chanting, 'Thou art just, O Lord, in this judgment.'
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It's amusing that they used the qualifying, "in this judgement." Lawyers in hell, I guess.
Freudian reference to one of your sparring partners?
The loving GB designation came more from books like Mere Christianity.
Give no poor fool the pretext to think ye are claiming knowledge of what no poor mortal knows. I'll have no Swedenborgs..
I found it funny (one ha) that he was goofing on Swedenborg in the midst of writing about what happens after death (although it was interesting to think you'd be able to see Napoleon thru a telescope).
Napoleon through a telescope, eh? In truth, he only "heard tell". You are funny.
I had to look up Swedenborg to get the full drift of his "do as I say, not as I do" caveat.
Did you eat your black-eyed peas? The rain's ruined my plans for having really good ones downtown a ways. Will soften a few up in some cabbage soup and toss in one thin dime -- or perhaps just the usual two cents -- for good measure.
Cheers, monkey ... have a great year.
Here you've lost me completely. I suspect it's the word "converge" that has tripped your trigger. O'Connor is not cheering a pernicious substitution of Caesar for God, but only drawing on the imagery of perspective, according to which, as souls rise higher towards God, they appear to converge to a vanishing point, ultimately entering into the perfect unity with Divine (not "the people's) will that theologians call theosis.
If I've misunderstood you, please forgive & explain.
But ... as I thought I made clear, there's a big difference between heading higher (out of love and as an individual) and settling lower as globs of collective soul whose "personal values" are rendered equally meaningless by the State.
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