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I am Mike Noakes.
That is was my pipe.
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"Before the beautiful-no, not really before but within the beautiful-the whole person quivers. He not only 'finds' the beautiful moving; rather, he experiences himself as being moved and possessed by it."
- Hans Urs von Balthasar
"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher."
- Flannery o'Connor
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- Acts of the Apostles
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- St. Augustine
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The Eucharist of the Early Christians
The Collected Short Stories, Flannery o'Connor
The Kingdom of God is Within You, Tolstoy
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Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope John Paul II
God is Near Us, Pope Benedict XVI
Heretics/Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton
Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barret Browning
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Monday, May 29, 2006
Monastic Dread Pt. II
 What am I?
I am a word spoken by God.
Can God speak a word that does not have any meaning?
Yet am I sure that the meaning of my life is the meaning God intends for it? Does God impose a meaning on my life from the outside, through event, custom, routine, law, system, impace with others in society? Or am I called to create from within, with [God], with [Gods] grace, a meaning which reflects [Gods] truth and makes me [Gods] "word" spoken freely in my personal situation? My true identity lies hidden in God's call to my freedom in order to love, with full responsibility and authenticity, not merely receiving a form imposed on me by external forces, or forming my own life according to an approves social pattern, but directing my love to the personal reality of my [spiritual sibling], and embracing God's will in its naked, often unpenetrable mystery ( Rom. 11.33-36) I cannot discover my "meaning" if I try to evade the dread which comes from first experiencing my meaninglessness! Thomas Merton, "Contemplative Prayer."
posted by -mike- at 5:39 PM
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4 Comments:
It's kind of odd hearing a Christian honestly take a look at existential thought. If you honestly feel lost or in exile, why not go there and try and learn, from the perspective of a follower of Christ, why you feel that way. It seems a lot of time people ignore or somehow shrug off those feelings, without acknowledging their (the feelings) legitimacy. People don't ask, why do I feel unimportant?, they just feel unimportant and try and move on or something. Little do they realize that these questions have a great deal to do with their God, and His broken, but fixable, creation.
I don't think it is odd at all hearing a "christian" take a look at what is termed "existential thought." The first recognized philosopher to take a formative existential stand was also a theologian. Despair and lostness are a fundamental aspect of the human condition, when one is honest with one's self. What is the meaning of life? More importantly, what is the purpose of my life? Until we come to that place where all doesn't seem lost, but all has been lost, it's only there will we see the light of hope, concealed in the darkness of our unknowingness.
Hey Mike, good to see you back in the blogging world again, haven't really got time to have a good read right now but will add you to the 'blogroll' and keep track of your posts. Good to have you back!
Derek
I guess I meant a current Christian, cuz, the Bible adresses some pretty depressing thoughts. Maybe I meant it was fresh, not odd. It's just good, merton I mean.
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