Re: Your thoughts -- life to me

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: I recently read a story about a medeival contemplative who was blessed with the ability to float into the air at will. It often happened while he was in deepest prayer, and he even used it to carry decorations to the highest points of his monastery. Nothing gave him more joy than : floating into the air...but then his superiors told him that he should not do it anymore. After this he was devastated, but wanting to be obedient he gave it up, after which he entered a depression from which he never fully recovered. But in that depression he drew so much closer to God because he had learned not to seek God for the pleasure it gave him, nor to rely on external or sensory things to guage his relationship. He was sent into the night of sense and there learned to love God with no apparent effects. This is called the deepest union by the contemplatives. : Keep praying, and releasing all desires apart from those for God alone. You are in good company. In the darkness of your senses your soul is slipping out to meet its true love in deepest intimacy. And in the end all things pass. Either you will recover some joy in this life or you will die and enter the purest joy where your senses will no longer need to be darkened. Either way there is nothing to do but wait and meet the needs of today. : We are praying together. : : : I too am sick, though it hasn't been a long process. I just got over a cold and then ran right into another one. As for the depression I will pray with you. In the meantime, do what you can to find even the simplest pleasure...warm sunlight, a nice glass of water, anything. : : * * * * * : : I will pray for you also, my friend. I am trying for the simple pleasures. My animals bring me joy, though some are now sick and one is dying and that breaks my heart. Many are getting old and will die soon. They are good friends and I wish I had more time for them. : : My wife is the best gift I ever received from God. I don't know how I could live without her. I sometimes wish we had nothing except each other and that life could be just that simple. She is the most beautiful thing I see right now. : : I miss my friends. They all have their own lives, and I pray for them to find God in everything, though I know that many have left their first loves and are not happy as they once were. I hurt for them. I do very much miss them. : : My house is falling apart and needs so much repair and maintenance that I could buy another house for what it will cost. The biggest problem is the time I do not have. We have accumulated so much junk I wish I could make a big bonfire and burn it all. I have room and rooms of junk. The extra rooms used to be the domiciles of interesting roomates. Now they are junk rooms filled with all kinds of disorganized clutter we have piled up to get it out of sight. : : I miss my daughter and grandkids. I wish they were around to mess up my house even more. That would make the clutter more meaningful. I am glad they are a family now with the great guy Sarah married. : : I miss my mom too. She is all alone and I wish I could be with her more. I know she will not be around much longer and I wish I could take time off to just bless her. I wish I could spend a cold winter night by the fire with my sister and her husband in snowy Vermont. They are such good people. I wish I could see Win moshing or hear him talk about selling out for Jesus. I wish I could hear my dad pick up the phone and say hello in his deep warm baritone. : : I miss preaching and praying and singing worship. I love teaching, but all I ever wanted was to lead people to God. I just got so disenchanted with the flaws in the church I had to try to react redemptively in the only way I knew how--teaching about God apart from the controlling and abusive politics of the church. Now I am looking for the redemption I sought and just feel so cold. I wish I could undo years of heartache and pain. : : I was never a successful pastor but I really wanted to be a blessing. I wanted people to know I loved them but I was too frail to really love them right. I wanted to be able to reveal God's presence and see miracles for everyday people who would shine like the sun. I would give anything to go back and just love them better. I would lay down my life tonight if I could erase every pain I ever caused. : : I will probably feel like erasing this post tomorrow. It is just a big mess, but that's because I am a big mess. I do know what I will do now. I am going to just start praying for everyone I can think of all the time and just try to find some sort of reason for my existence in that. I can still pray. I do not know how much power my prayers still have. At one time they were powerful. I did battle and won for those I loved. I will dedicate myself to them again, even if they do not know it. : : As for the things you have written below, I cannot thank you enough. They all actually mean so much right now. I would comment on each and every one and tell you how true it all is, and how hopeful, but it would take hours. Yes, I wait for that new order, and I think that it must exist or I wouldn't so feel the pain of longing for it. I do believe in God. I love the man Jesus. I hate the revisionism that destroys all the magic and the beauty and the love and the power. It really is satanic, I just know it. : : I want to be the simple sheepdog, and all I ever wanted was to reveal God's will and his glory, to steer the sheep into his love and warnth and joy. I want to see another glimpse. I want to open the curtain and reveal his glory, but first I need to see it again for myself. I did see it once, and I heard his voice, and it consumed me, and I so deperately need to it again. : : The Caedmon's call song reminded me of Thomas Merton's Seeds of Contemplation I was reading today, however strange that may seem. The world has nothing for me, but all I have ever known of God has come through it and all I can ever hope to know will be revealed through this world and this existence somehow, since I am so bound to it. I want to see the holy in everything that exists, and truly love that part that is God, and yet not be in any way bound to inordinate love of any vehicle that reveals Him. : : This is all probably so confused. I am just happy to have a friend to share with. Forgive the old man who is probably losing his marbles. : : God bless you and your family. May you be a priest of his presence forever. : : * * * * * : : : : : As for your thoughts on the human condition, I totally agree. In fact that was largely why I gave up debating such topics in the first place. NOthing we say is going to change it. NO amount of categorizing, disecting, pinpointing will change it. I remember coming to this realization: that if we eliminated all divisions and equally distributed everything, the first thing that would happen is one person would attack another simply to have more. : : : But the hope for me lies beyond this world. God promises that these things will be rectified, but I think we, like the zealots, try to hard to effect it in a time and condition in which it is impossible. The best thing we can do is recognize that we live according to an order that is not yet manifest in this reality, though it does exist. In this mind we can continually work toward good on an individual level and leave the movings of organizations to themselves. : : : In my study of philosophy I began to believe that there are only two choices for the thinking person in the modern world...nihilism or God. Any person with eyes to see will soon realize that all efforts are vain and futile, destruction and death are all that lie ahead in even the best scenarios. So either there is no hope or there is God. All other outlooks are really just elaborate self deceptions. : : : I am reminded of a song by a very excellent band, though they are so mired in the Christian pop scene that they are often obscured by it. The band is Caedmon's Call...my brother turned me on to them. In one song they say, "this world has nothing for me, and this world has everything." What a powerful thought...I think the essence of the closest relationship with God begins at the point that we feel this way. Because before we are so disgusted and done with the things of this world as to lose hope, we are not truly free enough to fly into God's grace without looking back. : : : Lately my favorite metaphor has been that of the sheepdog. A friend once said off hand that if Jesus is the sheperd, we should be sheepdogs...but the image is so deep. A sheep dog doesn't concern himself with the decisions of the sheperd. He doesn't worry about providing for the sheep, all he does is keep them moving with the sheperd. Further, think of a dog's personality, especially a good dog whom you have shared life with. They are ever faithful, blindly, they are unable to understand all that you do, but they pick up on commands and feelings and they respond accordingly. They live to simply be with you, and they are content just to lie at your feet. This is the relationship that I desire with God. Lately in my meditations I have found myself simply wanting to lie at God's feet. To feel his hand on my head... but even if I can't feel it, : : : I remind myself that simply being at his heel is enough. After all, my deepest thoughts are little more than barking to him anyway. Thankfully he can interpret those groanings.

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