well, i continue to have my computer problems! i had just typed for about 15 minutes when i thot, i'm going to see what pressing 'save as a draft' does...thinking maybe i'd do that every 15 minutes or so so as to not lose a lot of typing...and i lost 15 minutes! went to the drafts and it was not there. i can feel the frustration rising. is God telling me not to type or what?! or is this just the way things go sometimes and...motor on? i don't know but am very frustrated.
in stubbornness i will continue the quotes from lewis' letters to an american lady from last week...i am not in a good way right now spiritually. i need to fully surrender everything to God but perversely resist. i am not trusting in nor entrusting myself to Him right now. i think that, below the surface, i am full of fear. i have no one else. He's always done what He says He will. He forgives me graciously and freely again and again and again and when He's forced (that's the feel of it to me...He doesn't at all delight in it..is not eager to 'make me pay' or to 'set me straight/give me what is coming to me') to bring pain, it's always less than what i deserve....and, yet, perversely i go my own winding wicked way. may i turn to You Lord. may i give You my whole self. may i give You the trust and obedience You so richly deserve. may i, thus, love myself aright. oh what a mess i am! oh how good You are..help me Lord...on to lewis' words..
no doubt, as i know only too well, the knowledge that one's acts have, contrary to one's intention, led to all sorts of dreadful consequences, is a heavy burden. but it is a burden of regret and humiliation, isn't it?, rather than of guilt. perhaps we all dislike humiliation so much that we tend to disguise it from ourselves by treating blunders as sins?...
my idea of the purgatorial kitchen didn't mean that anyone had lately been 'getting in my hair' it is simply my lifelong experience - that men are more likely to hand over to others what they ought to do themselves and women more likely to do themselves what others wish they would leave alone. hence both sexes must be told 'mind your own business', but in two different senses!
..i can sympathise with you about old mrs. ----. i saw a great deal of a woman like that at one time. one trouble about habitual liars is that, since you can't believe anything they say, you can't feel the slightest interest in it. one has to keep on saying 'but fro the grace of God, there go i'. let us pray that we never become like that...
i can't understand the people who say cats are not affectionate...true, our ginger tom ( a great don juan and a mighty hunter before the Lord) will take no notice of me, but he will of others. he thinks i'm not quite socially up to his standards and makes this very clear. no creature can give such a crushing 'snub as a cat! he sometimes looks at the dog - a big boxer puppy, very anxious to be friendly - i a way that makes it want to sink into the floor.
..how strange that God brings us into such intimate relations with creatures of whose real purpose and destiny we remain forever ignorant. we know to some degree what angels and men are for. but what is a flea for or a wild dog?
i hope one is rewarded for all the stunning replies one thinks of that one does not utter! but alas, even when we don't say them, more than we suspect comes out in our look, our manner and our voice. an elaborately patient silence can be very provoking! we are all fallen creatures and all very hard to live with...
my stuff about animals came long ago in the problem of pain. i ventured the supposal - it could be nothing more - that as we are raised in Christ, so at least some animals are raised in us. who knows, indeed, but that a great deal even of the inanimate creation is raise in the redeemed souls who have, during this life, taken its beauty into themselves? that may be the way in which the 'new heaven and new earth' are formed.
3.19.1963 i am sorry they threaten you with a painful disease. 'dangerous' matters much less, doesn't it? what have you and i got to do but make our exit? when they told me i was in danger several months ago, i don't remember feeling distressed. i am talking, of course, about dying, not about being killed..
i'm glad you can still enjoy a new dress. i can still dislike a new suit.
6.17.1963 pain is terrible, but surely you need not have fear as well? can you not see death as the friend and deliverer? it means stripping off that body which is tormenting you: like taking off a hairshirt or getting out of a dungeon. what is there to be afraid of? you have long attempted (and none of us does more) a christian life. your sins are confessed and absolved. has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret/ there are better things ahead than any we leave behind...remember, tho' we struggle against things because we are afraid of them, it is often the other way round - we get afraid because we struggle. are you struggling, resisting? don't you think our Lord says to you 'peace, child, peace. relax. let go. underneath are the everlasting arms. let go, I will catch you. do you trust Me so little?...of course this may not be the end. then make it a good rehearsal.
6.25.1963 tho' horrified at your sufferings, i am overjoyed at the blessed change in your attitude to death. this is a bigger stride forward than perhaps you yourself yet know. for you were rather badly wrong on that subject. only a few months ago when i said that we old people hadn't much more to do than to make a good exit, you were almost angry with me for what you called such a 'bitter' remark.. thank God , you now see it wasn't bitter; only plain common sense.
i do wonder why doctors inflict such torture to delay what cannot in any case be very long delayed. or why God does! unless there is still something for you to do, as far as weakness allows. i hope, now that you know you are forgiven, you will spend most of your remaining strength in forgiving. lay all the old resentments down at the wounded feet of Christ.
but oh, i do pity you for waking up and finding yourself still on the wrong side of the door! how awful it must have been for poor lazarus who had actually died, got it all over, and then was brought back - to go through it all, i suppose, a few years later. i think he, not st. stephen, ought really to be celebrated as the first martyr.
you say too much of the very little i have been able to do for you. perhaps you will very soon be able to repay me a thousandfold. for if this is goodbye, i am sure you will not forget me when you are in a better place. you'll put in a good word for me now and then, won't you? it will be fun when we at last meet..
6.28.1963 it was anaemia that endangered my life the winter before last, but of course trifling compared with yours. i think the best way to cope with the mental debility and total inertia is to submit to it entirely. don't try to concentrate. pretend you are a dormouse or even a turnip. but of course i know the acceptance of inertia is much easier for men than for women. we are the lazy sex. think of yourself just as a seed patiently waiting in the earth; waiting to come up a flower in the Gardener's good time, up into the real world, the real waking. ..we are here in the land of dreams. but cockcrow is coming. it is nearer now than when i began this letter.
7.6.1963 do you know, only a few weeks ago i realised suddenly that i at last had forgiven the cruel schoolmaster who so darkened my childhood. i'd been trying to do it for years; and like you, each time i thot i'd done it, i found after a week or so it all had to be attempted over again..
..we shall get out of it all sooner or later, for even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. let us pray much for one another..
7.16.1963 the loss of all mental concentration is what i dislike most. i fell asleep 3 times during your letter and found it very hard to understand! don't expect to hear much from me. you might as well expect a lecture on hegel from a drunk man..
7.27.1963 (written for jack by walter hooper who explains that the two voices are owing to an interruption during the dictation of the letter..) dear mary, jack asked me to tell you that letter writing is physically impossible , his fingers jerk and twitch so. his physical crisis has greatly disordered his intelligence and he is vividly aware of living in a world of hallucinations. i am afraid it seems very difficult to communicate to one another the high comforts. one strange and beautiful reason is that i myself suffer so little by their withdrawal. i have no physical pain - only extreme lethargy and some sense of absurdly. God bless you.
8.10.1963 dear mrs. ----, i am professor c.s.lewis's secretary writing to tell you some of the facts of professor lewis's present state of health. he felt that you were entitled to this history. i trust that you will not mind it coming from my hand; but so it must.
professor lewis had a relapse the second week in july. on the 15th of july he entered the acland nursing home. during the last hours of the night he had a heart attack from which it was not expected by his doctors that he would emerge...last tuesday (8.6) he was allowed to come home, accompanied, of course, by a nurse. even though he is enjoying more ease and comfort at the kilns professor lewis is, by no means, capable of writing letters...
8.30.1963 dear mary, thanks for yours of the 27th. i am quite comfortable but very easily tire. (my brother) is still away so i have all the mail to do. so you must expect my letters to be very few and very short. more a wave of the hand than a letter. yours, jack
i must say that i am so happy the Lord led me to this book, a book i had known of but had scorned as not having much to feed on intellectually or grist for my faith. having read it and then retyped the things that touched me for various reasons i would have to say it is the best and may well prove to be the most potent influence on my life. we shall see. the experience, to me, is a kind of metaphor as to the difference between knowing intellectually what God has revealed about Himself in the bible and knowing Him. i very blessed to have finally gotten to know c.s. lewis. he to this point could have been likened to a gigantic mind which i often bowed down to intellectually. but from now on he is a real, living, breathing broken reed through whom i know Jesus better. if this stays as sterile knowledge of the self-emptying beauty of Jesus that would be a tragedy. i pray that i might have been materially and eternally infected with the disease so that Jesus may be seen in me too.
one of the many ways in which my life is totally out of sinc spiritually is the near collapse of and disappearance of the seven daily habits from my life. i knew this was happening at a period of overwhelming time demands and deliberately let them go so as to fulfill what i thot my duty before God. i'm not so sure, but am wondering if i should ever make such a decision again. things constantly tug me away from what i deem central (the habits) and i often think of van dyke's 4th wise man who never made it to see Jesus! may God give me direction and balance. i don't want to be a legalist on the one hand but, on the other, when not spending time with Jesus and in His word it seems that, in me at least, the Life tends to drain away. i truly can do nothing without Him but maybe He wants me always extremely busy outwardly while at the same time 'feeding on Him' in spirit. i think now of e. stanley jones who as a missionary was incredibly busy but always had a morning and every daily time with God away from teeming demands...
this morning one of the boarders left. it has affected me much more strongly than i can really put into words...summed up in the word loneliness. just another one of the myriad of events that constitute the 'dying of Jesus'. did He not, while on earth, and now from heaven endure not only loneliness from those He gives life to, but rejection, scorn, hatred and revilement. we all blame God for everything we don't like and give Him credit for nothing we enjoy. similarly, the most spiritual-seeming of relationships can be 'all about self'. (like this relationship with a deeply hurting boarder)
much, i am convinced, of the apparent beauty in relationships and in people is absolutely fools gold. i think back to the days when my personality was ablaze, i could work like samson (in my own mind of course!), was extremely involved with a lot of people, everywhere doing everything 'for God'....i think it was all about Me. it seems like my whole life is a sum total of 0, for i constantly look back on 'good times', 'accomplishments', etc. and all i see is self. i think of lewis saying that our lives are (i forget the exact word but)attempts or approximations of christianity. how true. the whole screwed-up-rescrewed-up -covered-over-and-repeatedly-redone canvas of our lives He may look down at with fatherly love and pride as at an infant and say, you get an 'A for effort' (but it was all Him) hence, He may be saying to me, KEEP WORKING OUT YOUR SALVATION, SWEETIE PIE, YOU ARE DOING WELL, HONEY...its all Me...
...but yea, oh Lord help me depend (hang from You alone), believe, obey...best i can...help me keep getting up and looking to You once again...
the current battle for the habits being reinstated is thus. meditation of 100 verses and memorization of new must happen if nothing else has. i have totally supplanted the morning time with God for this. next is 8 hours a day (40 a week) toward billable painting or house work. the trouble is that i have been involved in redoing a deck done incorrectly two years ago. that took about 50 man hours and over $200 out of pocket for prep and materials. as i LABORED physically, mentally, spiritually thru this situation the Lesson i had to 'write on the board' a thousand times was: do not continue, in any area of your life to be so arrogantly proud. always do your homework well before doing something new and if you still don't feel confident that you can do an excellent job, do not do it. i am a man of sorrows for i am a man who is arrogant and proud. will i learn this lesson and be humble, tentative, waiting on the Lord, one who prepares adequately with forethought and thorough knowledge before doing anything. proverbs 21.5 the PLANS of the diligent lead surely to advantage, but everyone who is HASTY comes surely to poverty.
then i jump out of that frying pan into the fire of violating another lesson in Jesus' school of discipline: don't promise ANYTHING without talking with Me about it first. this tale of woe is just about to begin is that i promised the pastor at church to polyurethane 11 new wood doors at a cut rate without putting it to the Lord first. the next day i began to have a strong lack of peace about the whole thing and fearing all the difficulties that have come in other recent situations when i have made quick decisions of this nature, i called back the next day and said i had a lack of peace and could not do it. THEN i kept being reminded of one of the characteristics of the person who will stand in God's presence...'he that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not'...! finally, i was so plagued by this that i had to cast a lot: do You want me to poly these doors for pastor?....yes....had to call back and say this and say i would do the doors. what a fool! all to do what's right conscience wise...and in the process throw myself, as it were, under God's bus. i'm now looking forward to another harrowing experience. i have never professionally done this and sensing strongly in the days directly following the call back to pastor that it might be wise to consult a multitude of counsellors. i called the paint store and after talking with them had no peace. so... for the first time in nearly 4 years since i stopped painting for osborne, i decided to call him. a half hour later, having taken many notes, i hung up so greatful that i had not just plunged in as usual. paul, in maine, kindly offered to look the situation over first hand upon arriving home so i hope to look over things tuesday a.m. and then have paul, who has been doing these things for 35 years talk directly to pastor and advise him as to how best to deal with the situation. (without going into details it's kind of a 'different' thing he desires done with the trim involved...sighhhh. i'm looking forward to spending a long time on this at not much pay with the possiblity that it might turn out to be a disaster. i'm even thinking of possibly subcontracting the thing out to paul and...once again, taking a hit financially. sighhhhhhhh. 'in everything give thanks' comes to my inner ear, so...Lord thank You for this thicket of prickers. humble me down till i do nothing 'rouge' (ie. on my own). train me to be a servant who simply looks unto the hand of his master to direct what, when, where and how things should be done. may God give me the willingness to take this next lickin' like a man for i truly deserve it. i am slooooow to hear...
helped bill get situated in his home last night. his children had moved, with all the household goods, to lancaster earlier in the week and early last night his wife said goodbye after her last day at work and left to join them. the certificate noting the finality of the divorce is yet to be received and so bill and i just hung out a bit to help him over this hard transition. he now will prepare the house for sale and, hopefully, can relocate somewhere close enough to be able to be involved in the lives of his children. i will miss him.
shortly after 2:30 a.m. God awakened me and i spent the rest of the night 'in His arms' just talking to Him. it has been a while since i've spent time like this with Him. i am right in the thicket of spiritual disarray and one of the many results of this has been to have a distancing from Him. Lord knows, i don't at all deserve this but he, as usual, did not utter one word against me. i think His m.o. was simply to comfort me in all my confusion and lack of trust in Him and, in the loss of bill, back to an empty house again friday morning thru monday night each week. the only way i can describe His wordless love was just to communicate comfort and encouragement and to give grace on my first night alone. thank You Jesus for Your faithful love to me...so undeserving of anything good...
from 'st. francis of assisi by g.k. chesterton..
the son of a merchant in italy, God gave to francis grace to move from the normal life we observe in everyone here in this world to be filled with a deep, life-changing thankfulness to God that led him to move out of the paths appointed for him in the flesh: become married, become a merchant, engage in war; and give himself to God. in this giving he saw all men as equally important. this change was affected in an experience where he saw a leper coming along the road toward him and after embracing the leper and giving to him, starting on his way again he turned to look back and the leper was gone...but so was his last fear of giving himself to all men.
in his town of assisi, based upon a vision in the night which he interpreted as a call to do exploits in the ongoing war with the next town he left for battle only to realize that this was not where he was to be. on his return, he had to face the label of coward.
then, the local church was in ruins and on that site francis received the message see My house in ruins. restore it for Me'. he took this literally but was so intent on fulfilling this mission that he used some of his father's goods. his father publicly objected and the label thief was the result of this spontaneity.
this all provoked the crisis that led to him giving his life completely to God. (i yearn for the same. perhaps God will help me.)
after this crisis where he totally renounced 'normal' life others began to gather around him, eating refuse, sleeping wherever, clothed as beggars.
francis has been romanticized as a troubadour. a troubadour, loosely, 'a lover', comes out of the tradition of the love poets in provence or languedoc, territories in france during this period. this tradition was a sort of system of the 'fine art' of flirtation and philandering.
francis was more a jongleur, a joculator or jester, or sometimes a juggler who would often travel with the troubadour...or were all functions of the same man.
francis called those who surrounded him jongleurs de Deiu (of God) and the idea seems to be that all they did was not for women but for the blessed mary...in our tradition, for God. as the jongleur was often the servant of the troubadour, so he and his followers were servants...of God. this service was seen as a freedom almost amounting to frivolity. great PRAISE burst forth out of total humility. all was for God. 'blessed is he who expecteth nothing for he shall not be disappointed!
it is said that no one who met francis ever forgot him because he was so, let us say, supernormal. it was said that his actions were never anticipated but they were always appropriate.
he established three orders. the first order was the men who started to gather around him, giving up all to do so. 'he called them by a name which is generally rendered in english as the friars minor; but...(it can be rendered) almost literally as little brothers. presumably he was already resolved...that they should take the tree vows of poverty, chastity and obedience which had always been the mark of a monk. but it would seem that he was not so much afraid of the idea of a monk as of the idea of an abbot. he was afraid that the great spiritual magistracies which had given even to their holiest possessors at least a sort of impersonal and corporate pride, would impart an element of pomposity that would spoil his extremely and almost extravagantly simple version of the life of humility. but the supreme difference between his discipline and the discipline of the old monastic system was concerned, of course, with the idea that the monks were to become migratory and almost nomadic instead of stationary. they were to mingle with the world; and this the more old-fashioned monk would naturally reply by asking how they were to mingle with the world without becoming entangled with the world, but st francis had his answer to it...
the good bishop of assisi expressed a sort of horror at the hard life which the little brothers lived..without comforts, without possessions, eating anything they could get and sleeping anyhow on the ground. st. francis answered him with that curious and almost stunning shrewdness which the unworldly can sometimes wield like a club of stone. he said 'if we had any possessions, we should need weapons and laws to defend them'. that sentence is the clue to the whole policy that he pursued. it rested upon a real piece of logic...his argument was this: that the dedicated man might go anywhere among any kind of men, even the worst kind of men, so long as there was nothing by which they could hold him. if he had any ties or needs like ordinary men, he would become like ordinary men...friars must not become like ordinary men...the salt must not lose its savour even to turn into human nature's daily food. and the difference between a friar and an ordinary man was really that a friar was freer than an ordinary man. it was necessary that he should be free from the cloister; but it was even more important that he should be free from the world. it is perfectly sound common sense to say that there is a sense in which the ordinary man cannot be free from the world; or rather ought not to be free from the world. the feudal world in particular was one labyrinthine system of dependence..the 12th century had been the age of vows..but no man need obey little francis in the old brown coat unless he chose. even in his relations with his chosen leader he was in one sense relatively free, compared with the world around him. he was obedient but not dependent..the whole idea of francis was that the little brothers should be like little fishes which could go freely in and out of ..the net( of normal life interdependency)...able to travel light..fast..far..
the world was to be outflanked and out witted..you could not threaten to starve a man who was ever striving to fast. you could not ruin him and reduce him to beggary, for he was already a beggar. there was a very lukewarm satisfaction even in beating him with a stick, when he only indulged in little leaps and cries of joy because indignity was his only dignity. you could not put his head in a halter without the risk of putting it in a halo..he asked the laity for food as confidently as he asked the fraternity for fasting..he counted on the hospitality of humanity because he really did regard every house as the house of a friend. he really did love and honor ordinary men and and ordinary things; indeed we may say that he only sent out the extraordinary men to encourage men to be ordinary...the audacity and simplicity of the franciscan plan for quartering its spiritual soldiery upon the population; not by force but by persuasion, and even by the persuasion of impotence...
the whole point of a monk was that his economic affairs were settled for good; he knew where he would get his supper, though it was a ..plain supper. but the whole point of a friar ws that he did not know where he would get his supper. there was always a possibility that he might get no supper. there was an element of what would be called romance, as of the gipsy or adventurer. but there was also an element of potential tragedy, as of the tramp or the casual labourer..the cardinals who were to decide whether to allow this order were concerned...(but) cardinal san paolo seems to have argued more or less in this manner: it may be a hard life, but after all it is the life apparently described as ideal in the gospel; make what compromises you think wise or humane about that ideal; but do not commit yourselves to saying that men shall not fufil that ideal if they can.
the next passage in the history of the order is simply the story of more and more people flocking to its standard; and as has already been remarked, once it had begun to grow, it could in its nature grow much more quickly than any ordinary society requiring ordinary funds and public buildings. even the return (from rome to assisi) of the 12 pioneers..seems to have been a sort of triumphal procession. in one place in particular, it is said, the whole population of a town,,turned out, leaving their work and wealth and homes exactly as they stood and begging to be taken into the army of God on the spot. (these foreshadowed the third order which enabled men to share in the movement without leaving the homes and habits of normal humanity..the second order was for women, somewhat similar to the first i suppose).
as the orders became established, francis and several others went east to convert the muslims. he conceived this more and more in terms of sacrifice and crucifixion . he was full of the sentiment that he had not suffered enough to be worthy even to be a distant follower of huis suffering God. this time..may be roughly summarized as the search for martyrdom...he also wanted to bring the crusades to an end..only he wished to do it by conversion not by conquest..it is better to create christians than to destroy moslems..once there he succeeded in obtaining an interview that he evidently offered, and as some say proceeded, to fling himself into the fire as a divine ordeal, defying the moslem religious teachers to do the same..indeed throwing himself into the fire was hardly more desperate, in any case, than throwing himself among the weapons and tools of torture of a horde of fanatical moslems..what happened is not certain but francis returned west unharmed and greatly disappointed for the moslems remained unconverted.
back in italy francis found that his orders had been moved toward a more moderated existence than that of the original vision. (the original franciscan rule forbade the acceptance of $ for example). to some extent francis parted company with the more moderate policy which ultimately prevailed. this combined with his failure in the east cast a shadow upon him and moved him, in the last part of his life into more isolation...
francis was above all a great giver and he cared chiefly for the best kind of giving which is called thanksgiving. if another great man wrote a grammar of assent, he may well be said to have written a grammar of acceptance; a grammar of gratitude. he understood down to its very depths the theory of thanks'...
walt whitman (in the lincoln anthology, 2009)...'i shall not easily for get the first time i ..saw abraham lincoln. it must have been about the 18th or19th of february, 1861. it was rather a pleasant afternoon, in new york city, as he arrived there from the west, to remain a few hours, and then pass on to washington, to prepare for his inauguration. i saw him in broadway, near the site of the present post office. he came down, i think from canal street, to stop at the astor house. the broad spaces, sidewalks, and street in the neighborhood, and for some distance, were crowded with solid masses of people, many thousands. the omnibuses and other vehicles had all been turn'd off, leaving an unusual hush in that busy part of the city. presently two or three shabby hack borouches made their way with some difficulty thru the crowd, and drew up at the astor house entrance. a tall figure step'd out of the centre of these barouches, paus'd leisurely on the sidewalk, look'd up at the granite walls and looming architecture of the grand old hotel - then, after a relieving stretch of arms and legs, turn'd round for over a minute slowly and good-humoredly scan the appearance of the vast and silent crowds. there were no speeches - no compliments - no welcome - as far as i could hear, not a word said. still much anxiety was conceal'd in that quiet. cautious person had fear'd some mark'd insult or indignity to the president-elect - for he possess'd no personal popularity at all in new york city, and very little political. but it was evidently tacitly agreed that if the few political supporters of mr. lincoln present would entirely abstain from any demonstration on their side, the immense majority, who were any thing but supporters would abstain on their side also. the result was a sulky, unbroken silence, such as certainly never before characterized so great a new york crowd.
almost in the same neighborhood i distinctly remember'd seeing lafayette on his visit to america in 1825. i had also personally seen and heard, various years afterward, how andrew jackson, clay, webster, hungarian kossuth, filibuster walker, the prince of wales on his visit, and other celebres, native and foreign, had been welcomed there - all that indescribable human roar and magnetism, unlike any other sound in the universe - the glad exulting thunder-shouts of countless unloos'd throats of men! but on this occasion, not a voice - not a sound. from the top of an omnibus, (driven up one side, close by and block'd by the curbstone and the crowds,) i had, i say, a capital view of it all, and especially of mr. lincoln, his look and gait - his perfect composure and coolness - his unusual and uncouth height, his dress of complete black, stovepipe had push'd back on the head, dark-brown complexion, seam'd and wrinkled yet canny-looking face, black, bushy head of hair, disproportionately long neck, and his hands held behind as he stood observing the people. he look'd with curiosity upon that immense sea of faces and the sea of faces return'd the look with similar curiosity. in both there was a dash of comedy, almost farce, such as shakspeare puts in his blackest tragedies. the crowd that hemm'd around consisted i should think of thiry to forty thousand men, not a single one his personal friend - while i have no doubt, (so frenzied were the ferments of the time,) many an assassin's knife and pistol lurk'd in hip or breast-pocket there, ready, soon as break and riot came
but no break or riot came. the tall figure gave another relieving stretch or two of arms and legs; then with moderate pace, and accompanied by a few unknown looking persons, ascended the portico-steps of the astor house, disapper'd thru its broad entrance - and the dumb-show ended.' 'i will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about' - david (psalm 3)
c.s. lewis, mere christianity..'besides being complicated, reality, in my experience,is usually odd. it is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect. for instance, when you have grasped that the earth and the other planets all go round the sun, you would naturally expect that all the planets were made to match - all at equal distances from each other, say, or distances that regularly increased, or all the same size, or else getting bigger or smaller as you go further from the sun. in fact, you find no rhyme or reason (that we can see) about either the sizes or the distances, and some of them have one moon, one has four, one has two, some have none, and one has a ring.
reality, in fact, is usually something you could not have guessed. that is one of the reasons i believe christianity. it is a religion you could not have guessed. if it offered us just the kind of universe we had always expected, i should feel we were making it up. but, in fact, it is not the sort of thing anyone would have made up. it has just that queer twist about it that real things have. so let us leave behind all these boys' philosophies - these over-simple answers. the problem is not simple and the answer is not going to be simple either'.
i've taken to wearing the oldest, hole-y, sneakers i have, sans socks, to church. last sunday night a fellow behind me, after service, pressed a $20 in my hand. i wanted God to bless him as He does me when i do stuff like that so i just said, muchas gracias. (i can get up to nyc for the muslim day parade with this maybe..) this sunday night (yesterday) i got to talk with the man, herman, and his brother, ruben, before service. two interesting things happened. 1. even though they are recent attenders and not part of the regular 'in crowd' they both just really opened up and we had a tremendous talk..the best i've had all year there! i was so blessed that they actually wanted to talk. i ended up saying, ustedes son una respuesta a mi oracion.. (you guys are an answer to my prayer...ie.for someone to speak spanish with). 2. strangely, both they and tsaltina, my longtime, 74 year old girlfriend whose portuguese i can't make out, but with whom God has given a real mutual kissing-and-hugging-and-broken-chatting affection, all told me they can't wait until i get up front and talk during the opening 'devotional' period (during which different ones share and, as a group, we read the bible and sing. i was amazed at this because God has been putting on my heart several little 'messages' i feel burdened to give the people there! i doubt whether i'll get good enough to do that..and they probably don't let non-members do stuff like that..but i'd be thrilled to..
have a good week! love, dad
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
7.27.10 DOE THE NEXTE THYNGE
dear nate and jen,
just have to take some time out of a chaotic day to 'talk' with you.
this a.m nate told me that there is no substantive new thing coming out of silas' mri (was it? i'm terrible at all these technical terms...'test' is about where i am on matters like this!) at children's hospital...meaning there is still at present no magic pill that lies waiting in your future that will bring a change to silas' and your life status overall life status as it relates to his development.
i'm doing this on the blog for i think that your situation is so universal. every one of us just gets to plug in a different set of circumstances that appear unchanging, challenging, possibly fearful and threatening to us and, not least of all, difficult.
(by the way, if you don't like being written to on the blog let me know and i'll either delete or neuterize the contents so that you are not on public display, as it were. i keep struggling personally over the blog and have come to the conclusion, for me it comes down to what are my motivations for public display. i think Jesus' life was an open book and of all the writers of scripture paul is, far and away, the most autobiographical...and in this way most like Jesus, who never wrote, with the addition of words to life. he says to the corinthians that our lives are an open book read and known of all men. that i take as a universal truism for every person, and although the way we live is far more powerful, the exposure of our lives to public view through words... if we are imitating Jesus... can increase any good savor that may be coming out...)
also,i'd like to say that i am very aware that much of what i share here i feel that you both have a very good understanding of and, moreover, put into practice more than i do. so in writing though it may sound like preaching or advice, from my perspective it is more like encouraging, exhorting, urging on.for many things we know but, because of all the weaknesses inherent in the flesh, we tend not to consistently live up to what we know much less live up to it with a victorious, all-conquering faith.
this a.m. i read an article, 'do the nexte thynge', quoted below,
...'sometimes we prefer daydreaming and scheming about the distant future because today's God-given tasks seem mundane or less rewarding or too hard or they heighten our fears however, here's what you can and should do immediately: do the next thing.
the first 3 stanzas of an old, anonymous poem describe it like this:
from an old english parsonage down by the sea
there came in the twilight a message to me
its quaint saxon legend, deeply engraven
hath, it seems to me, teaching from heaven
and on thru the doors the quiet words ring
like a low inspiration: DOE THE NEXTE THYNGE
many a questioning, many a fear, many a doubt, hath its quieting here.
moment by moment, let down from heaven
time, opportunity and guidance are given
fear not tomorrows, child of the King
trust them with Jesus, doe the nexte thynge
do it immediately, do it with prayer
do it reliantly, casting all care;
do it with reverence, tracing His hand
who placed it before thee with earnest command
stayed on Omnipotence, safe 'neath His wing,
leave all results, doe the nexte thynge
this way of life is not simply about 'trying hard' one moment at a time. it involves trusting Christ as you take the next step of obedience...and...then..the next..
when Jesus says that His disciples follow Him, He means that they acknowledge His lordship, listen to Him and obey Him as their King. but you can't do in one day what He is going to have you do in an entire week. therefore, Jesus says, 'so do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. each day has enough trouble of its own' matt. 6.34 furthermore, you can't do in one hour what Christ designed for you to do in an entire day. therefore, don't even worry about later on today - each hour has enough trouble of its own!
..here's our hope..because Christ's death and resurrection set us free from sin (rom. 6.6-14..there is always enough grace for the next thing.
looking for Jesus, ever serener
working or suffering, be thy demeanor
in His dear presence, the rest of His calm
the light of His countenance be thy psalm
strong in his faithfulness, praise and sing
then, as He beckons thee, doe the nexte thynge.
there is the temptation that come to each of us that what we have on our particular plate is harder than that on (some? many? most? all?) others'. but we know from scripture that that is not true for we are told that no temptation comes to us but such as is common to man. the heart of every single challenge for every single person is 'will i trust God in this or not?' and the answer for all is 'i can do all things thru Christ who strengtheneth me'. there is no CAN'T only WON'T and not one of us can count on Christ's strength when we are not, by our lack of faith, in the place where we can receive it.
sometime we are drawn to sit in judgment on God so that in our mind we are acting as though 'He should answer to me (do what I say)' rather than what is reality 'i (and 'i someday will') answer to God (i must do what He says)'. correct thinking is never 'why are You doing (allowing) this?' but rather along the line of, "by every standard of fairness if seen in its true light, i should be in hell right now suffering, for who i am and all i have done against You, suffering justly for all eternity!' the closer we come to the latter perspective the more joyful in, grateful for and correctly understanding of every circumstance we will be.
along this line, some of of my favorite verses written by moses in what we now know as psalm 90 spell this out. 'they (man) are like grass which groweth up in the morning. in the morning they flourish and grow up; in the evening they are cut down and wither. for we are consumed by Thine anger and by Thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. all our days are passed away in Thy wrath. we spend our years as a tale that is told....OH SATISFY US EARLY WITH THY M-E-R-C-Y that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us and the years wherein we have seen evil'.
if we only could get used to the reality that:
1. i are all in a swiftly passing test (soon over) that will have close bearing on....that is to say, we are all in a life on this earth that is an opportunity for continual, victorious war against forces that want to destroy us or, failing that, greatly impoverish me (and hence limit God's glory) in........... eternity
2. in that conflict PAIN and difficulty IS NORMATIVE.
our flesh wants to enjoy heaven here. this is an allusion which causes endless...pain. if we believed correctly we would much better be able to war victorious..and God be seen in and through our lives. i guess, as in so much else, God has left it up to us to make our choice: will i believe God and act on the basis of His truth or will i not?
help us chose to believe You, Lord.
love, dad
just have to take some time out of a chaotic day to 'talk' with you.
this a.m nate told me that there is no substantive new thing coming out of silas' mri (was it? i'm terrible at all these technical terms...'test' is about where i am on matters like this!) at children's hospital...meaning there is still at present no magic pill that lies waiting in your future that will bring a change to silas' and your life status overall life status as it relates to his development.
i'm doing this on the blog for i think that your situation is so universal. every one of us just gets to plug in a different set of circumstances that appear unchanging, challenging, possibly fearful and threatening to us and, not least of all, difficult.
(by the way, if you don't like being written to on the blog let me know and i'll either delete or neuterize the contents so that you are not on public display, as it were. i keep struggling personally over the blog and have come to the conclusion, for me it comes down to what are my motivations for public display. i think Jesus' life was an open book and of all the writers of scripture paul is, far and away, the most autobiographical...and in this way most like Jesus, who never wrote, with the addition of words to life. he says to the corinthians that our lives are an open book read and known of all men. that i take as a universal truism for every person, and although the way we live is far more powerful, the exposure of our lives to public view through words... if we are imitating Jesus... can increase any good savor that may be coming out...)
also,i'd like to say that i am very aware that much of what i share here i feel that you both have a very good understanding of and, moreover, put into practice more than i do. so in writing though it may sound like preaching or advice, from my perspective it is more like encouraging, exhorting, urging on.for many things we know but, because of all the weaknesses inherent in the flesh, we tend not to consistently live up to what we know much less live up to it with a victorious, all-conquering faith.
this a.m. i read an article, 'do the nexte thynge', quoted below,
...'sometimes we prefer daydreaming and scheming about the distant future because today's God-given tasks seem mundane or less rewarding or too hard or they heighten our fears however, here's what you can and should do immediately: do the next thing.
the first 3 stanzas of an old, anonymous poem describe it like this:
from an old english parsonage down by the sea
there came in the twilight a message to me
its quaint saxon legend, deeply engraven
hath, it seems to me, teaching from heaven
and on thru the doors the quiet words ring
like a low inspiration: DOE THE NEXTE THYNGE
many a questioning, many a fear, many a doubt, hath its quieting here.
moment by moment, let down from heaven
time, opportunity and guidance are given
fear not tomorrows, child of the King
trust them with Jesus, doe the nexte thynge
do it immediately, do it with prayer
do it reliantly, casting all care;
do it with reverence, tracing His hand
who placed it before thee with earnest command
stayed on Omnipotence, safe 'neath His wing,
leave all results, doe the nexte thynge
this way of life is not simply about 'trying hard' one moment at a time. it involves trusting Christ as you take the next step of obedience...and...then..the next..
when Jesus says that His disciples follow Him, He means that they acknowledge His lordship, listen to Him and obey Him as their King. but you can't do in one day what He is going to have you do in an entire week. therefore, Jesus says, 'so do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. each day has enough trouble of its own' matt. 6.34 furthermore, you can't do in one hour what Christ designed for you to do in an entire day. therefore, don't even worry about later on today - each hour has enough trouble of its own!
..here's our hope..because Christ's death and resurrection set us free from sin (rom. 6.6-14..there is always enough grace for the next thing.
looking for Jesus, ever serener
working or suffering, be thy demeanor
in His dear presence, the rest of His calm
the light of His countenance be thy psalm
strong in his faithfulness, praise and sing
then, as He beckons thee, doe the nexte thynge.
there is the temptation that come to each of us that what we have on our particular plate is harder than that on (some? many? most? all?) others'. but we know from scripture that that is not true for we are told that no temptation comes to us but such as is common to man. the heart of every single challenge for every single person is 'will i trust God in this or not?' and the answer for all is 'i can do all things thru Christ who strengtheneth me'. there is no CAN'T only WON'T and not one of us can count on Christ's strength when we are not, by our lack of faith, in the place where we can receive it.
sometime we are drawn to sit in judgment on God so that in our mind we are acting as though 'He should answer to me (do what I say)' rather than what is reality 'i (and 'i someday will') answer to God (i must do what He says)'. correct thinking is never 'why are You doing (allowing) this?' but rather along the line of, "by every standard of fairness if seen in its true light, i should be in hell right now suffering, for who i am and all i have done against You, suffering justly for all eternity!' the closer we come to the latter perspective the more joyful in, grateful for and correctly understanding of every circumstance we will be.
along this line, some of of my favorite verses written by moses in what we now know as psalm 90 spell this out. 'they (man) are like grass which groweth up in the morning. in the morning they flourish and grow up; in the evening they are cut down and wither. for we are consumed by Thine anger and by Thy wrath are we troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. all our days are passed away in Thy wrath. we spend our years as a tale that is told....OH SATISFY US EARLY WITH THY M-E-R-C-Y that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us and the years wherein we have seen evil'.
if we only could get used to the reality that:
1. i are all in a swiftly passing test (soon over) that will have close bearing on....that is to say, we are all in a life on this earth that is an opportunity for continual, victorious war against forces that want to destroy us or, failing that, greatly impoverish me (and hence limit God's glory) in........... eternity
2. in that conflict PAIN and difficulty IS NORMATIVE.
our flesh wants to enjoy heaven here. this is an allusion which causes endless...pain. if we believed correctly we would much better be able to war victorious..and God be seen in and through our lives. i guess, as in so much else, God has left it up to us to make our choice: will i believe God and act on the basis of His truth or will i not?
help us chose to believe You, Lord.
love, dad
Saturday, July 24, 2010
7.25.10 MAY YOU LIVE FOREVER!
yesterday i went out of the library pissed off because, once again, about an hour of 'writing' was totally deleted due to some kind of glitch or, more probably, due to something i did. maddening! but even worse is the fact that i feel these mystical deletions (which occurred in bunches during the end of the 8 months of hell when my howling anger/fear/outrage focused on the government 'had to' come out of my fingertips) are somehow 'done' by God...at any rate i just barely got out of here praying, "Lord help me. i am so pissed off at You. my rage against You knows no bounds! i kept crying out in this manner and went home in a pout to 'suck my thumb' by sitting down to read letters to an american lady by c.s. lewis. somehow thru those cries God helped me. but as i sit again i am in a bit of consternation. i have committed this time to God and ask that not my but His will be done thru this...if indeed there remains any 'this' when i leave.
this morning as i finished the book i could not stop crying. i'm not totally sure why. was it that these were a living illustration of lewis' belief that taking time to advise/encourage another christian was both a humbling of his talents before the Lord and also as much the work of the Holy Spirit as writing a book? was it (also mentioned in the preface) that lewis continually hews the sharpest of lines between the utter and continuous practice of christianity and our feelings...we are to DO and let our feelings be as they may? this is a remarkable testament to the practice of this in his life and such a strong encouragement in an area in which i am abysmally weak? all i know is, entertained, amused and instructed as i was, the overall xray impression at the end was the beauty of Jesus mediated thru a person. i was also deeply blessed to, for the first time, feel that i was getting to know lewis as a person. so...here goes. i probably won't get it all down but, as usual, i want to share what seems specially meaningful.
8.1.1953 (lewis 50 years old) i do most heartily agree that it is just as well to be past the age when one expects or desires to attract the other sex. it's natural enough in our species, as in others, that the young birds should show off their plumage - in the mating season. but the trouble in the modern world is that there's a tendency to rush all the birds on to that age as soon as possible and then keep them there as late as possible, thus losing all the real value of the other parts of life in a senseless, pitiful attempt to prolong what, after all, is neither its wisest, its happiest, or most innocent period.
..it is good for us to be cured of the illusion of 'independence'. for of course independence, the state of being indebted to no one, is eternally impossible. who, after all, is more totally dependent than what we call the man 'of independent means'. every shirt he wears is made by other people out of other organisms and the only difference between him and us is that even the money whereby he pays for it was earned by other people. of course you ought to be dependent on your daughter and son-in-law. support of parents is a most ancient and universally acknowledged duty. and if you come to find yourself dependent on anyone else you mustn't mind...
..not that your relief had not in fact occurred before my prayer, but as if, in tenderness for my puny faith God moved me to pray with especial earnestness just before He was going to give me the thing. how true that our prayers are really His prayers; He speaks to Himself thru us. i am also most moved at hearing how you were supported through the period of anxiety for one is sometimes tempted to think that if He wanted us to be as un-anxious as the lilies of the field He really might have given us a constitution more like theirs!
i feel exactly as you do about the horrid commercial racket they have made out of christmas. i send no cards and give no presents except to children.
do you ever read montaigne? he says 'the peasants make everything easier by the names they use. to them a consumption is only a cough and a cancer only a stomachache'..
we wouldn't call alfred and egbert and all those the 'british' line. they are the 'english' line, the angles, who come from angel in south denmark. by the british line we'd mean the celtic line that goes back thru the tudors to cadwallader and thence to arthur, uther, cassbelan, lear, lud, brut aeneas, jupiter. the present royal family can claim descent from both the british and the english lines. so i suppose, can most of us: for since one has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 great-grandparents, and so on, one is presumably descended from nearly everyone who was alive in this island in the year 600 ad. in the long run one is related to everyone on the planet..we are all 'one flesh'..
..by the way, don't 'weep inwardly' and get a sore throat. if you must weep, weep: a good honest howl! i suspect we - and especially, my sex - don't cry enough now-a-days. aeneas and hector and beowulf, roland and lancelot blubbered like schoolgirls, so why shouldn't we?
i am very puzzled by people like your committee secretary, people who are just nasty. i find it easier to understand the great crimes, for the raw material of them exists in us all; the mere disagreeableness which seems to spring from no recognisable passion is mysterious (like the total stranger in a train of whom i once asked 'do you know when we get to liverpool' and who replied i'm not paid to answer your questions: ask the guard') i have found it more among boys than anyone else. that make me think it really comes from inner insecurity - a dim sense that one is nobody, a strong determination to be somebody and a belief that his can be achieved by arrogance. probably you, who can't hit back, come in for a good deal of resentful arrogance aroused by others on whom she doesn't vent it, because they can (a bully in an elizabethan play, having been sat on by a man he dare not fight, says i'll go home and beat all my servants.) but i mustn't encourage you to go on thinking about her: that, after all, is almost the greatest evil nasty people can do us - to become an obsession...a brief prayer for them and then away to other subjects, is the thing..
i don't think we ought to try to keep up our normal prayers when we are ill and over-tired. i would not say this to a beginner who still has the habit to form. but you are past that stage. one mustn't make the christian life into a punctilious system of law, like the jewish (for) two reasons: 1. it raises scruples when we don't keep the routine, 2. it raises presumption when we do. nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been a total absence of all real charity and faith.
..a good deal of your alarming story i didn't understand. why is cutting off one's telephone a protection against assault? it sounds to me just as much a non-sequitur as going armed in the streets to protect oneself from telephone calls!
thanks for your letter of the 2d and for the Time (magazine) cutting. my brother says the photo of me is the best ever, but another friend says it is unrecognisable. what's most impressive is the smoke from the match (a picture of lewis as he was lighting his pipe), which looks like the explosion of a miniature shell. the review is of course a tissue of muddles and direct falsehoods - i don't say 'lies' because the people who write such things are not really capable of lying. i mean, to lie = to say what you know to be untrue. but to know this, and to have the very ideas of truth and falsehood in your head, presupposes a clarity of mind which they haven't got. to call them liars would be as undeserved a compliment as to say that a dog was bad at arithmetic.
don't be too easily convinced that God really wants you to do all sorts of work you needn't do. each must do his duty 'in that state of life to which god has called him'. remember that a belief in the virtues of doing for doing's sake is characteristically feminine, characteristically american and characteristically modern: so that three veils may divide you from the correct view! there can be intemperance in work just as in drink. what feels like zeal may be only fidgets or even the flattering of one's self-importance. as macdonald says 'in holy things may be unholy greed'. and by doing what 'one's' station and its duties' does not demand, one can make oneself less fit for the duties it does demand and so commit some injustice. just you give mary a little chance as well as martha!
what a horrid adventure. to meet unrestrained anger in any human being is in itself always very shocking. i think the effect may be partly physical. have you noticed how one angry an burst out ( say, in a crowded bus) and a tension comes over everyone? indeed one nearly becomes equally angry oneself. when one gets this shock along with injustice of course there is a compound reaction. it is at first sight so easy to forgive (especially when one knows that the anger was pathological) but then one wort of wakes up five minutes later and finds one hasn't really for given at all - the resentment is still tingling thru one's veins. and how one has to watch that 'feeling hurt' - so seldom (as one would like to believe) mere sorrow, so nearly always mixed with wounded pride, self-justification, fright, even (hiding in the corners) desire for retaliation. but obviously you know all this and have fought your best. but there remains the quite separate trouble of having lost your job (this person was regularly losing jobs). oh dear. i am sorry. surely all these church people will find some way to provide for you. (by english law it was illegal for the english to send $ to america but eventually lewis was able to have his american publisher send this correspondent a regular monthly stipend. the preface says he gave away 2/3rds of his income)..
oh dear, what a hard, frightening world it is! and yet not wholly; i am rejoiced to hear that you have some true friends who will not let you sink. and why should there be any (let alone 'too much') 'cringing inside"? we are all members of one another and must all learn to receive as well as to give...it took me a long time to see this -though, heaven knows, with the cross before our eyes we have little excuse to forget our insolvency.
the devil used to try to prevent people from doing good works, but he has now learned a trick worth two of that: he organises 'em instead..
i will never laugh at anyone for grieving over a loved beast. i think God wants us to love Him more, not to love creatures (even animals) less. we love everything in one way too much (ie. at the expense of our love for him) but in another way we love everything too little.
no person, animal, flower, or even pebble, has ever been loved too much - ie. more than every one of god's works deserves. but you need not feel 'like a murderer'. rather rejoice that God's law allows you to extend to fanda that last mercy which (no doubt, quite rightly) we are forbidden to extend to suffering humans. you'll get over this...
yes, we must not fret about not doing God those supposed services which he in fact does not allow us to do. very often i expect, the service He really demands is that of not being (apparently) used, or not in the way we expected, or not in a way we can perceive.
we all go thru periods of dryness in our prayers, don't we? i doubt..whether they are necessarily a bad symptom. i sometimes suspect that what we feel to be our best prayers are really our worst; that what we are enjoying is the satisfaction of apparent success, as in executing a dance or reciting a poem. do our prayers sometimes go wrong because we insist on trying to talk to God when He wants to talk to us. joy (lewis' wife) tells me that once, years ago, she was haunted one morning by a feeling that god wanted something of her, a persistent pressure like the nag of a neglected duty. and till mid-morning she kept on wondering what it was. but the moment she stopped worrying, the answer came thru as plain as a spoken voice. it was 'I don't want you to do anything. I want to give you something' and immediately her heart was full of peace and delight. st. augustine says 'God gives where He finds empty hands'. ..perhaps these parcels are not always sins or earthly cares, but sometimes our own fussy attempts to worship Him in our way.
remember the story in the imitation, how Christ on the crucifix suddenly spoke to the monk who was so anxious about his salvation and said, 'if you knew that all was well, what would you, today, do, or stop doing?' when you have found the answer, do it or stop doing it. you see, one must always get back to the practical and definite. what the devil loves is that vague cloud of unspecified guilt feeling or unspecified virtue by which he lures us into despair or presumption. 'details, please?' is the answer.
there's an old scots version of psalm 136 (137) 8f (happy the man who repays you (babylon the destroyer) for all you did to us! happy is he who shall seize your children and dash them against the rock) which goes:
o blessed may that trooper be
who, riding on his naggie,
wull tak thy wee bairns by the taes
and ding them on the craggie.
to tell a story which puts the contrast between our feast of the nativity and , all this ghastly 'xmas racket at its lowest. my brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a crib outside it, 'oh Lor'! they bring religion into everything look - they're dragging it even into christmas now!'
we are having beautiful winter weather at present: bright, pale sunshine (paler than you ever see - joy calls it the 'arctic still air , and just that sprinkling of hoar-frost which makes everything sparkle like sugar.
we also have a siamese cat. in my heart of hearts i really prefer the great, grey bullet-headed nativ cat, but the siamese are delicate and fascinating creatures. ours adores me because i lift her up by her tail - an operation which i can't imagine i sould like if i were a cat, but she comes back for more and more, purring all the time..
what a state we have got into when we can't say 'i'll be happy when god calls me' without being afraid one will be thot 'morbid'. after all, st. paul said just the same. if we really believe what we say we believe - if we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a 'wandering to find home', why should we not look forward to the arrival. ther are, aren't ther, only three things we can do about death: to desire it, to fear it, or to ignore it. the third alternative, which is the one the modern world calls 'healthy' is surely the most uneasy and precarious of all.
you surely don't mean 'feeling that we are not worthy to be forgiven'? for of course we aren't. forgiveness by its nature is for the unworthy. you mean 'feeling that we are not forgiven'. i have known that. i 'believed' theoretically in the divine forgiveness for years before it really came home to me. it is a wonderful moment when it does.
you femember the imitation says 'bear your cross, for if you try to get rid of it you will probably find another and worse one'. but there is a brighter side to the same principle. when we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.
let us hope that both of us will have been given grace, amidst all this ghastly commercial racket of xmas, to enter into the feast of the nativity: the racket has nearly smothered it!
2.13.1960 (during the last 6 months of joy's life)..i am suffering from a strange condition which makes it impossible ever to stay asleep (i can go to sleep easily enough) for more than about 70 min. continuously at night, or to stay awake in the day time if i relax at all! premature senility perhaps.
do you know, i should have more hope for the young cad described in father L's letter than for many people in a quiet, cultured state of unbelief who would always speak of christianity with reverence? his very rudeness shows that he is not quite free from the fear that there 'might be something in it after all'...
things are not, or not much, worse with us, but life is very terrible. i sometimes feel i am mad to be taking joy to greece in her present condition, but her heart is set upon it. they give the condemned man what he likes for his last breakfast, i am told.
7.15.60 i've just got your letter of the 12th. joy died on the 13th. i can't describe the apparent unreality of my life since then. she received absolution and died at peace with God. i will try to write again when i have more command of myself. i'm like a sleep-walker at the moment. God bless.
as coleridge says - to be wroth with one we love doth work like madness in the brain - it's the mixture or alteration, of resentment and affection that is so very uneasy, isn't it? for the indulgence of either immediately comes slap up against the other, which then, a few seconds later comes slap up against it, so that the mind does a diabolical 'shuttle-service' to and fro between them. we've all at some time in our lives, i expect, had this experience. except possibly anxiety nothing is more hostile to sleep. one must try, i suppose, to keep on remembering that the love part of the suffering is good and purgatorial while the anger pare is bad and infernal. yet how madly one cherishes that base part as if it were one's dearest possession - dwells on everything that can aggravate the offence - and keep on thinking of things one would like to say to the other pary! i suppose all one can do is to keep on meditating on the petition 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trepass against us'. i find fear a great help - the fear that my own unforgiving ness will exclude me from all the promises. fear tames wrath. and this fear (we have our Lord's word for it) is wholly well-grounded. the human heart (mine anyway) is 'desperately wicked'. joy often quoted this in connection with the great difficulty she found in forgiving a very near and very nasty relative of her own. one has to keep on doing it over again, doesn't one?....ps. it's also useful to thing 'either x is not so bad as, in my present anger, i think. if not, how unjust i must be. if so, how terribly x needs my prayers'. (next letter, by way of further comment: 'what i was writing about last time was the pain and resntment you were feeling about some things ------ had said or done. i wasn't trying to lecture. rather, to compare notes about temptation we all have to contend with...
..as for the bug-bear of Old Peoples' Homes, remember that out ignorance words both ways. just as some of the things we have longed and hoped for turn out to be dust and ashes when we get them, so the things we have most dreaded sometimes turn out to be quite nice. if you ever do have to go to a home, Christ will be there just as much as in any other place.
..but i'm afraid as we grow older life consists more and more in either giving up things or waiting for them to be taken from us...the only certain thing is that your acceptance (if you accept) or your refusal (if you refuse) must be made with perfect charity and courtesy. may god's grace give you the necessary humility. try not to thing - much less, speak - of their sins. one's own are a much more profitable theme! and if, on consideration, one can find no faults on one's own side, than cry for mercy: for this must be a most dangerous delusion...
probably the safe rule will be 'when in doubt what to do or say, do or say nothing'. i feel this very much with my stepsons. i so easily meddle and gas: when all the time what will really influence them, for good or ill, is not anything i do or say but what i am. and this unfortunately one can't know and can't much alter, though god can.
..i hope your vet is not a charlatan? psychological diagnoses even about human patients seem to me pretty phoney. they must be even phonier when applied to animals. you can't put a cat on a couch and make it tell you its dreams or produce words by 'free association'. also - i have a great respect for cats - they are very shrewd peopld and would probably see thru the analyst a good deal better than he'd see thru them..
humans are very seldom either totally sincere or totally hypocritical. their moods change, their motives are mixed and they are often themselves quite mistaken as to what their motives are...i know it's easy for me to give good advice to others in situations which i probably could not face myself. but that can't be helped; i must say what i think true. surely the main purpose of our life is to reach the point at which 'one's own life as a person' is at an end one must in this sense 'die', become 'naught', relinquish one's freedom and independence. 'not i, but Christ that dwelleth in me...but you know all this quite as well as i do...
4.21.1961 i've got some sort of virus into me which has kept me from being quite well all this spring, never quite awake by day and never quite asleep by night (and never without unpleasant dreams), so don't expect much from me..
..i have nothing to say but things you know already quite as well as i do. we must beware of the Past, mustn't we? i mean that any fixing of the mind on old evils beyond what is absolutely necessary for repenting our own sins and forgiving those of others is certainly useless and susally bad for us. notice in dante that the lost souls are entirely concerned with their past! not so the saved. this is one of the dangers of getting, like you and me, old. there's so musch past, now, isn't there. and so little else. but we must try very hard not to keep on endlessly chewing the cud. we must look forward more eagerly to sloughing that old skin off forever - metaphors getting a bit mixed here, but you know what i mean.
in your position i myself would prefer a 'Home" - or almost anythign - to solitude. your view reminds me of a dipsomaniac retire major i once knew who refused the suggestion that he should try A.A. on the ground that 'it would be full of retired majors'! i am better, but that only means more nearly ripe for a big operation...
5.1962 ..but i am permanently a semi-invalid on a low-protein diet (it must be good for my soul when ther are things i really like for dinner and i mustn't have them!) like you i have to reduce stair-climbing to the minimum. it does make life complicated, doesn'
t it? there's no going back upstairs for something you have forgotten, so that every time one goes down one has to think of everthing as if one were planning an expedition to the north pole or central africa. but one learn!
yes, we do seem to be having a certain amount of experience in common! perhaps if we had done more voluntary fasting before God would not now have put us on these darn diets! well, the theologians say that an imposed mortification can have all the merit of a voluntary one if it is taken in the right spirit..
i have a notion that, apart from actual pain, men and women are quite diversely afflicted by illness. to a woman one of the great evils about it is that she can't do things. to a man (or anyway a man like me) the great consolation is the reflection 'well, anyway, no one can now demand that i shold do anything'. i have often had the fancy that one stage in purgatory might be a great big kitchen in which things are always going wrong - milk boiling over, crockery getting smashed, toast burning, animals stealing. the women have to learn to sit still and mind their own business: the men have to learn to jump up and do something about it. when both sexes have mastered this exercise, they do on to the next...
no doubt, as i know only too well, the knowledge that one's acts have, contrary to one's intention, led to all sorts of dreadful consequences, is a heavy burden. but it is a burden of regret and humiliation, isn't it?, rather than of guilt..............................................................................................i close! all the computers just went down and i lost another hour of typing....i'm not retyping again.
it's weird how a person can read a book that is so full of things they want to share with others. maybe God is telling me to stop sharing things from books and probably (if anyone would improbably wade thru all the above to get to actually read this) the reader would concur...'if i wanted to read 'letters to an american lady' i would have gotten the book!
i have read and still read so many words that are empty to me....the percentage of them, out of the whole, grows daily it seems, and hence, wish there was some way to share what sparkles and provokes thots with others. frustrating. my own words look and feel so tiresome that it is nice to escape them for others that seem much more worthwhile. maybe i'm just supposed to be quiet and live.
hope you have a good week. love, dad
this morning as i finished the book i could not stop crying. i'm not totally sure why. was it that these were a living illustration of lewis' belief that taking time to advise/encourage another christian was both a humbling of his talents before the Lord and also as much the work of the Holy Spirit as writing a book? was it (also mentioned in the preface) that lewis continually hews the sharpest of lines between the utter and continuous practice of christianity and our feelings...we are to DO and let our feelings be as they may? this is a remarkable testament to the practice of this in his life and such a strong encouragement in an area in which i am abysmally weak? all i know is, entertained, amused and instructed as i was, the overall xray impression at the end was the beauty of Jesus mediated thru a person. i was also deeply blessed to, for the first time, feel that i was getting to know lewis as a person. so...here goes. i probably won't get it all down but, as usual, i want to share what seems specially meaningful.
8.1.1953 (lewis 50 years old) i do most heartily agree that it is just as well to be past the age when one expects or desires to attract the other sex. it's natural enough in our species, as in others, that the young birds should show off their plumage - in the mating season. but the trouble in the modern world is that there's a tendency to rush all the birds on to that age as soon as possible and then keep them there as late as possible, thus losing all the real value of the other parts of life in a senseless, pitiful attempt to prolong what, after all, is neither its wisest, its happiest, or most innocent period.
..it is good for us to be cured of the illusion of 'independence'. for of course independence, the state of being indebted to no one, is eternally impossible. who, after all, is more totally dependent than what we call the man 'of independent means'. every shirt he wears is made by other people out of other organisms and the only difference between him and us is that even the money whereby he pays for it was earned by other people. of course you ought to be dependent on your daughter and son-in-law. support of parents is a most ancient and universally acknowledged duty. and if you come to find yourself dependent on anyone else you mustn't mind...
..not that your relief had not in fact occurred before my prayer, but as if, in tenderness for my puny faith God moved me to pray with especial earnestness just before He was going to give me the thing. how true that our prayers are really His prayers; He speaks to Himself thru us. i am also most moved at hearing how you were supported through the period of anxiety for one is sometimes tempted to think that if He wanted us to be as un-anxious as the lilies of the field He really might have given us a constitution more like theirs!
i feel exactly as you do about the horrid commercial racket they have made out of christmas. i send no cards and give no presents except to children.
do you ever read montaigne? he says 'the peasants make everything easier by the names they use. to them a consumption is only a cough and a cancer only a stomachache'..
we wouldn't call alfred and egbert and all those the 'british' line. they are the 'english' line, the angles, who come from angel in south denmark. by the british line we'd mean the celtic line that goes back thru the tudors to cadwallader and thence to arthur, uther, cassbelan, lear, lud, brut aeneas, jupiter. the present royal family can claim descent from both the british and the english lines. so i suppose, can most of us: for since one has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 16 great-grandparents, and so on, one is presumably descended from nearly everyone who was alive in this island in the year 600 ad. in the long run one is related to everyone on the planet..we are all 'one flesh'..
..by the way, don't 'weep inwardly' and get a sore throat. if you must weep, weep: a good honest howl! i suspect we - and especially, my sex - don't cry enough now-a-days. aeneas and hector and beowulf, roland and lancelot blubbered like schoolgirls, so why shouldn't we?
i am very puzzled by people like your committee secretary, people who are just nasty. i find it easier to understand the great crimes, for the raw material of them exists in us all; the mere disagreeableness which seems to spring from no recognisable passion is mysterious (like the total stranger in a train of whom i once asked 'do you know when we get to liverpool' and who replied i'm not paid to answer your questions: ask the guard') i have found it more among boys than anyone else. that make me think it really comes from inner insecurity - a dim sense that one is nobody, a strong determination to be somebody and a belief that his can be achieved by arrogance. probably you, who can't hit back, come in for a good deal of resentful arrogance aroused by others on whom she doesn't vent it, because they can (a bully in an elizabethan play, having been sat on by a man he dare not fight, says i'll go home and beat all my servants.) but i mustn't encourage you to go on thinking about her: that, after all, is almost the greatest evil nasty people can do us - to become an obsession...a brief prayer for them and then away to other subjects, is the thing..
i don't think we ought to try to keep up our normal prayers when we are ill and over-tired. i would not say this to a beginner who still has the habit to form. but you are past that stage. one mustn't make the christian life into a punctilious system of law, like the jewish (for) two reasons: 1. it raises scruples when we don't keep the routine, 2. it raises presumption when we do. nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been a total absence of all real charity and faith.
..a good deal of your alarming story i didn't understand. why is cutting off one's telephone a protection against assault? it sounds to me just as much a non-sequitur as going armed in the streets to protect oneself from telephone calls!
thanks for your letter of the 2d and for the Time (magazine) cutting. my brother says the photo of me is the best ever, but another friend says it is unrecognisable. what's most impressive is the smoke from the match (a picture of lewis as he was lighting his pipe), which looks like the explosion of a miniature shell. the review is of course a tissue of muddles and direct falsehoods - i don't say 'lies' because the people who write such things are not really capable of lying. i mean, to lie = to say what you know to be untrue. but to know this, and to have the very ideas of truth and falsehood in your head, presupposes a clarity of mind which they haven't got. to call them liars would be as undeserved a compliment as to say that a dog was bad at arithmetic.
don't be too easily convinced that God really wants you to do all sorts of work you needn't do. each must do his duty 'in that state of life to which god has called him'. remember that a belief in the virtues of doing for doing's sake is characteristically feminine, characteristically american and characteristically modern: so that three veils may divide you from the correct view! there can be intemperance in work just as in drink. what feels like zeal may be only fidgets or even the flattering of one's self-importance. as macdonald says 'in holy things may be unholy greed'. and by doing what 'one's' station and its duties' does not demand, one can make oneself less fit for the duties it does demand and so commit some injustice. just you give mary a little chance as well as martha!
what a horrid adventure. to meet unrestrained anger in any human being is in itself always very shocking. i think the effect may be partly physical. have you noticed how one angry an burst out ( say, in a crowded bus) and a tension comes over everyone? indeed one nearly becomes equally angry oneself. when one gets this shock along with injustice of course there is a compound reaction. it is at first sight so easy to forgive (especially when one knows that the anger was pathological) but then one wort of wakes up five minutes later and finds one hasn't really for given at all - the resentment is still tingling thru one's veins. and how one has to watch that 'feeling hurt' - so seldom (as one would like to believe) mere sorrow, so nearly always mixed with wounded pride, self-justification, fright, even (hiding in the corners) desire for retaliation. but obviously you know all this and have fought your best. but there remains the quite separate trouble of having lost your job (this person was regularly losing jobs). oh dear. i am sorry. surely all these church people will find some way to provide for you. (by english law it was illegal for the english to send $ to america but eventually lewis was able to have his american publisher send this correspondent a regular monthly stipend. the preface says he gave away 2/3rds of his income)..
oh dear, what a hard, frightening world it is! and yet not wholly; i am rejoiced to hear that you have some true friends who will not let you sink. and why should there be any (let alone 'too much') 'cringing inside"? we are all members of one another and must all learn to receive as well as to give...it took me a long time to see this -though, heaven knows, with the cross before our eyes we have little excuse to forget our insolvency.
the devil used to try to prevent people from doing good works, but he has now learned a trick worth two of that: he organises 'em instead..
i will never laugh at anyone for grieving over a loved beast. i think God wants us to love Him more, not to love creatures (even animals) less. we love everything in one way too much (ie. at the expense of our love for him) but in another way we love everything too little.
no person, animal, flower, or even pebble, has ever been loved too much - ie. more than every one of god's works deserves. but you need not feel 'like a murderer'. rather rejoice that God's law allows you to extend to fanda that last mercy which (no doubt, quite rightly) we are forbidden to extend to suffering humans. you'll get over this...
yes, we must not fret about not doing God those supposed services which he in fact does not allow us to do. very often i expect, the service He really demands is that of not being (apparently) used, or not in the way we expected, or not in a way we can perceive.
we all go thru periods of dryness in our prayers, don't we? i doubt..whether they are necessarily a bad symptom. i sometimes suspect that what we feel to be our best prayers are really our worst; that what we are enjoying is the satisfaction of apparent success, as in executing a dance or reciting a poem. do our prayers sometimes go wrong because we insist on trying to talk to God when He wants to talk to us. joy (lewis' wife) tells me that once, years ago, she was haunted one morning by a feeling that god wanted something of her, a persistent pressure like the nag of a neglected duty. and till mid-morning she kept on wondering what it was. but the moment she stopped worrying, the answer came thru as plain as a spoken voice. it was 'I don't want you to do anything. I want to give you something' and immediately her heart was full of peace and delight. st. augustine says 'God gives where He finds empty hands'. ..perhaps these parcels are not always sins or earthly cares, but sometimes our own fussy attempts to worship Him in our way.
remember the story in the imitation, how Christ on the crucifix suddenly spoke to the monk who was so anxious about his salvation and said, 'if you knew that all was well, what would you, today, do, or stop doing?' when you have found the answer, do it or stop doing it. you see, one must always get back to the practical and definite. what the devil loves is that vague cloud of unspecified guilt feeling or unspecified virtue by which he lures us into despair or presumption. 'details, please?' is the answer.
there's an old scots version of psalm 136 (137) 8f (happy the man who repays you (babylon the destroyer) for all you did to us! happy is he who shall seize your children and dash them against the rock) which goes:
o blessed may that trooper be
who, riding on his naggie,
wull tak thy wee bairns by the taes
and ding them on the craggie.
to tell a story which puts the contrast between our feast of the nativity and , all this ghastly 'xmas racket at its lowest. my brother heard a woman on a 'bus say, as the 'bus passed a church with a crib outside it, 'oh Lor'! they bring religion into everything look - they're dragging it even into christmas now!'
we are having beautiful winter weather at present: bright, pale sunshine (paler than you ever see - joy calls it the 'arctic still air , and just that sprinkling of hoar-frost which makes everything sparkle like sugar.
we also have a siamese cat. in my heart of hearts i really prefer the great, grey bullet-headed nativ cat, but the siamese are delicate and fascinating creatures. ours adores me because i lift her up by her tail - an operation which i can't imagine i sould like if i were a cat, but she comes back for more and more, purring all the time..
what a state we have got into when we can't say 'i'll be happy when god calls me' without being afraid one will be thot 'morbid'. after all, st. paul said just the same. if we really believe what we say we believe - if we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a 'wandering to find home', why should we not look forward to the arrival. ther are, aren't ther, only three things we can do about death: to desire it, to fear it, or to ignore it. the third alternative, which is the one the modern world calls 'healthy' is surely the most uneasy and precarious of all.
you surely don't mean 'feeling that we are not worthy to be forgiven'? for of course we aren't. forgiveness by its nature is for the unworthy. you mean 'feeling that we are not forgiven'. i have known that. i 'believed' theoretically in the divine forgiveness for years before it really came home to me. it is a wonderful moment when it does.
you femember the imitation says 'bear your cross, for if you try to get rid of it you will probably find another and worse one'. but there is a brighter side to the same principle. when we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.
let us hope that both of us will have been given grace, amidst all this ghastly commercial racket of xmas, to enter into the feast of the nativity: the racket has nearly smothered it!
2.13.1960 (during the last 6 months of joy's life)..i am suffering from a strange condition which makes it impossible ever to stay asleep (i can go to sleep easily enough) for more than about 70 min. continuously at night, or to stay awake in the day time if i relax at all! premature senility perhaps.
do you know, i should have more hope for the young cad described in father L's letter than for many people in a quiet, cultured state of unbelief who would always speak of christianity with reverence? his very rudeness shows that he is not quite free from the fear that there 'might be something in it after all'...
things are not, or not much, worse with us, but life is very terrible. i sometimes feel i am mad to be taking joy to greece in her present condition, but her heart is set upon it. they give the condemned man what he likes for his last breakfast, i am told.
7.15.60 i've just got your letter of the 12th. joy died on the 13th. i can't describe the apparent unreality of my life since then. she received absolution and died at peace with God. i will try to write again when i have more command of myself. i'm like a sleep-walker at the moment. God bless.
as coleridge says - to be wroth with one we love doth work like madness in the brain - it's the mixture or alteration, of resentment and affection that is so very uneasy, isn't it? for the indulgence of either immediately comes slap up against the other, which then, a few seconds later comes slap up against it, so that the mind does a diabolical 'shuttle-service' to and fro between them. we've all at some time in our lives, i expect, had this experience. except possibly anxiety nothing is more hostile to sleep. one must try, i suppose, to keep on remembering that the love part of the suffering is good and purgatorial while the anger pare is bad and infernal. yet how madly one cherishes that base part as if it were one's dearest possession - dwells on everything that can aggravate the offence - and keep on thinking of things one would like to say to the other pary! i suppose all one can do is to keep on meditating on the petition 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trepass against us'. i find fear a great help - the fear that my own unforgiving ness will exclude me from all the promises. fear tames wrath. and this fear (we have our Lord's word for it) is wholly well-grounded. the human heart (mine anyway) is 'desperately wicked'. joy often quoted this in connection with the great difficulty she found in forgiving a very near and very nasty relative of her own. one has to keep on doing it over again, doesn't one?....ps. it's also useful to thing 'either x is not so bad as, in my present anger, i think. if not, how unjust i must be. if so, how terribly x needs my prayers'. (next letter, by way of further comment: 'what i was writing about last time was the pain and resntment you were feeling about some things ------ had said or done. i wasn't trying to lecture. rather, to compare notes about temptation we all have to contend with...
..as for the bug-bear of Old Peoples' Homes, remember that out ignorance words both ways. just as some of the things we have longed and hoped for turn out to be dust and ashes when we get them, so the things we have most dreaded sometimes turn out to be quite nice. if you ever do have to go to a home, Christ will be there just as much as in any other place.
..but i'm afraid as we grow older life consists more and more in either giving up things or waiting for them to be taken from us...the only certain thing is that your acceptance (if you accept) or your refusal (if you refuse) must be made with perfect charity and courtesy. may god's grace give you the necessary humility. try not to thing - much less, speak - of their sins. one's own are a much more profitable theme! and if, on consideration, one can find no faults on one's own side, than cry for mercy: for this must be a most dangerous delusion...
probably the safe rule will be 'when in doubt what to do or say, do or say nothing'. i feel this very much with my stepsons. i so easily meddle and gas: when all the time what will really influence them, for good or ill, is not anything i do or say but what i am. and this unfortunately one can't know and can't much alter, though god can.
..i hope your vet is not a charlatan? psychological diagnoses even about human patients seem to me pretty phoney. they must be even phonier when applied to animals. you can't put a cat on a couch and make it tell you its dreams or produce words by 'free association'. also - i have a great respect for cats - they are very shrewd peopld and would probably see thru the analyst a good deal better than he'd see thru them..
humans are very seldom either totally sincere or totally hypocritical. their moods change, their motives are mixed and they are often themselves quite mistaken as to what their motives are...i know it's easy for me to give good advice to others in situations which i probably could not face myself. but that can't be helped; i must say what i think true. surely the main purpose of our life is to reach the point at which 'one's own life as a person' is at an end one must in this sense 'die', become 'naught', relinquish one's freedom and independence. 'not i, but Christ that dwelleth in me...but you know all this quite as well as i do...
4.21.1961 i've got some sort of virus into me which has kept me from being quite well all this spring, never quite awake by day and never quite asleep by night (and never without unpleasant dreams), so don't expect much from me..
..i have nothing to say but things you know already quite as well as i do. we must beware of the Past, mustn't we? i mean that any fixing of the mind on old evils beyond what is absolutely necessary for repenting our own sins and forgiving those of others is certainly useless and susally bad for us. notice in dante that the lost souls are entirely concerned with their past! not so the saved. this is one of the dangers of getting, like you and me, old. there's so musch past, now, isn't there. and so little else. but we must try very hard not to keep on endlessly chewing the cud. we must look forward more eagerly to sloughing that old skin off forever - metaphors getting a bit mixed here, but you know what i mean.
in your position i myself would prefer a 'Home" - or almost anythign - to solitude. your view reminds me of a dipsomaniac retire major i once knew who refused the suggestion that he should try A.A. on the ground that 'it would be full of retired majors'! i am better, but that only means more nearly ripe for a big operation...
5.1962 ..but i am permanently a semi-invalid on a low-protein diet (it must be good for my soul when ther are things i really like for dinner and i mustn't have them!) like you i have to reduce stair-climbing to the minimum. it does make life complicated, doesn'
t it? there's no going back upstairs for something you have forgotten, so that every time one goes down one has to think of everthing as if one were planning an expedition to the north pole or central africa. but one learn!
yes, we do seem to be having a certain amount of experience in common! perhaps if we had done more voluntary fasting before God would not now have put us on these darn diets! well, the theologians say that an imposed mortification can have all the merit of a voluntary one if it is taken in the right spirit..
i have a notion that, apart from actual pain, men and women are quite diversely afflicted by illness. to a woman one of the great evils about it is that she can't do things. to a man (or anyway a man like me) the great consolation is the reflection 'well, anyway, no one can now demand that i shold do anything'. i have often had the fancy that one stage in purgatory might be a great big kitchen in which things are always going wrong - milk boiling over, crockery getting smashed, toast burning, animals stealing. the women have to learn to sit still and mind their own business: the men have to learn to jump up and do something about it. when both sexes have mastered this exercise, they do on to the next...
no doubt, as i know only too well, the knowledge that one's acts have, contrary to one's intention, led to all sorts of dreadful consequences, is a heavy burden. but it is a burden of regret and humiliation, isn't it?, rather than of guilt..............................................................................................i close! all the computers just went down and i lost another hour of typing....i'm not retyping again.
it's weird how a person can read a book that is so full of things they want to share with others. maybe God is telling me to stop sharing things from books and probably (if anyone would improbably wade thru all the above to get to actually read this) the reader would concur...'if i wanted to read 'letters to an american lady' i would have gotten the book!
i have read and still read so many words that are empty to me....the percentage of them, out of the whole, grows daily it seems, and hence, wish there was some way to share what sparkles and provokes thots with others. frustrating. my own words look and feel so tiresome that it is nice to escape them for others that seem much more worthwhile. maybe i'm just supposed to be quiet and live.
hope you have a good week. love, dad
Thursday, July 15, 2010
7.18.10 MAY YOU LIVE FOREVER!
i love you. this week read the biography of uncle cam townsend (?), the beginner of wycliffe bible translators. the main thing that struck me in this was that if a person is nothing and if they have a childlike faith in God, God is most clearly seen and loved. cam eagerly went to honduras to sell spanish bibles and at a conference there, right after he arrived, the speaker asked all the people if they had ever told anyone about Jesus' love. cam was dumbfounded as he had never done that. he was mortified that here he was a missionary and never had done that. he went right out and had some very embarrassing and mortifying situations and gave up as a failure. one of the men however came to him later and his life was changed radically...by God. cam wrote in his diary that it was amazing how God could do this...through his humble and humbling attempt to obey. he met an indian to whom he offered a spanish tract and the man after finding out he didn't have a tract in his (indian) language said, 'if your God is so great why can't He speak my language?' God used that to set cam on the goal of translating the new testament into every language on earth. as of 2000 (he started around 1916 1000 were completed, another 1500 (?) were in process and the goal was to translate the remaining 2000 by 2025. i found myself constantly weeping at the power and goodness of God thruout the book and hardly noticed cam at all. i don't know if it was the way it was written or if it was cam but it was special.
read practical modern basketball (parts) written by john wooden after reading they call me coach. even though it was more technical than interested me wooden's style of writing was so good that i found myself reading with pleasure and an increasing knowledge of basketball. as encouraged as i was seeing God use cam i was definitely set back reading this. wooden is the model of discipline. i the model of undiscipline. he is so far above that i do not even have any inclination toward becoming more disciplined...i'm not even on the map.
basic documents in medieval history a compilation by norton downs of little revealing snippets was helpful.
persecution of christians in the roman empire ended in the early 300s
at this time heresy was checked by churchwide councils
roman empire overrun by germanic peoples toward the end of 300s
english church was organized around 600
charlemagne named holy roman emperor 800
revival of learning at this time
beginnings of russia 860
swedes and russia 922 since i am .5 swede and i have not yet died utterly to ethnic pride i reprint what was written under this head, which i found enlightening, interesting and entertaining...as part of the general expansion of scandinavian peoples in the ninth century, the swedes sailed down the rivers of western russia. they extablished the russian state based on kiev and by their contacts with the byzantine and moslem empires developed a wealthy and cosmopolitan realm. they were active traders, as the quantity of arabic and greek gold coins found in sweden indicates. the following account is by a moslem sent out from bagdad..
'i saw how the northmen had arrived with their wares, and pitched their camp beside the volga. never did i see people so gigantic; they are as tall as palm trees and florid and ruddy of complexion. the men among them wear a garment of rough cloth, which is thrown over one side, so that one hand remains free. every one carries an axe, a dagger and a sword and with these weapons they are never seen. their swords are broad, withwavy lines and of frankish make. from the tip of the fingernails ato the neck, each man of them is tattooed with pictures of trees, living beings and other things. the women carry vastened to their breast, a little case of iron, copper, silver or gold, according to the wealth and resources of their husbands. fastened to the case they wear a ring and upon that a dagger, all attached to their breast. about their necks they wear gold and silver chains...(account of a norse funeral culminating in the cremation of the body)..the pile was soon aflame, then the ship, finally the tent, the man and the girl and everything else in the ship a terrible storm began to blow up and thus intensified the flames and gave wings to the blaze.
at my side stood one of the northmen and i heard him talking with the interpreter, who stood near him. i asked the interpreter what the northman had said and received this answer: 'you arabs, he said, must be a stupid set! you take him who is to you the most revered and beloved of men and cast him to the ground, to be devoured by creeping things and worms. we, on the other hand, burn him in a twinkling, so that he instantly, without a moment's delay, enters into paradise.' at this he burst into uncontrollable laughter, and then continued, 'it is the love of the master (God) that causes the wind to blow and snatch him away in an instant'...
therupon they heaped over the place where the ship had stood something like a rounded hill, and , erecting on the center of it a large birchen post, wrote on it the name of the deceased, along with that of the king of the northmen. having done this, they left the spot.
in rereading this i am helped. pride, criticism of others, a big mouth...i am right in the line.
treaty between alfred and guthrum 886 the danes had invaded england , but the tide was turned when king alfred of wessex defeated the danish king guthrum in 878 and retreated to the area thereafter called the danelaw. alfred was recognized by the english outside the danelaw as their king and thus the beginning of english political unity
norse sea adventures 1000 the destruction that the norse and danes wrought on europe and england was enormous. but it must be admitted that they were singularly daring sailors and competent navigators as their sailing across the north atlantic testify. they settled in iceland about 874, about 986 some settled in greenland and about 1000 leif eriksson found vinland the good (cape cod?_)
under the merovingian kings , a BENEFICE was usually a grant of land to a church or monastery by which the grantor held life use (usufruct) of the property in return for some pious service by the grantee. in about 732 charles martel, looking for means to provide for a cavalry force to repel moslem raiders, compelled the curch to grant benefices to laymen in return for their agreement to fight with him. kings and powerful laymen granted benefices to those woo served them as a formof payment. after the collapse of the carolingian empire, benefices held by individuals tended to become hereditary because the monarch was too weak.
grant of immunity, seventh century as was the case with benefices, grants of immunity were probably first received by the church. it is evident that they would be much sought after by laymen, because they brought freedom from much royal interference.
formula of commendation, seventh century germans had a custom whereby lesser men would voluntarily place themselves under the protectyion of stronger men. the former would receive protection and in return would perform certain duties for the latter.
charters of homage and fealty show the mutual obligations of lord and bvassal in feudalism.
dependency of the papacy - the papacy held vast amounts of land throughout europe from which it received income and services . it needed and developed an elaborate organization to collect its due..
services due a villein.. john of cayworth held his land from battle abbey and it was part of the manor of bernehorn in sussex, england the manor consisted of over 682 acres, of which 489 acres were in the demesne and the remaining 193 were divided among eight free tenants, 7 villeins and 18 cotters. the services and status of hjohn were about those of the typical serf..some of the services produced a loss for the lord; as thses instances increased, the land lord tended to fee his serfs. they would then be available for work at daily wages, which would cost him less than servilde labor.
dictatus papae, 1075 from(?) pope gregory 7th
the roman church was founded by god alone
the roman pontiff alone can with right be called universal
he alone can depose of reinstate bishops
in a council, his legate, even if a lower grade, is above all bishops and can pass sentence of deposition against them.
the pope may depose the absent
among other things, we ought not to remain in the same house with those excommunicated by him
for him alone is it lawful, accoring to the needs of the time, to make nes laws, to assemble together new congregations, to make an abbey of a canonry and, on the other hand, to divide a rich bishopric and unite the poor ones
he alone may use the imperial insignia
of the pope alone all princes shall kiss the feet
his name alone shall be spoken in the churches
this is the only name in the world
it may permitted to him to depose emperors
he may be permitted to transfer bishops if need be
he has power to ordain a clerk of any church he may wish
he who is ordained by him may preside over another church, but may not hold a suborinate position and that such a one may not receive a higher grade from any bishop
no synod shall be called a general one without his order
no chapter and no book shall be considered canonical without his authority a sentence passed by him may be retracted by no one and he himself, alone of all, may retract it
he himself may be judged by no one
no one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to the apostolic chair
to the latter should be referred the more important cases of every church
the roman church has never erred; nor will it err to all eternity, the scriptures bearing witness
the roman pontiff, if he have been canonically ordained, is undoubtedly made a saint...
by his command and consent, it may be lawful for subordinates to bring accusations
he may depose and reinstated bishops without assembling a synod
he who is not at peace with the roman church shallnot be considered catholic
he may absolve subjects from their fealty to wicked men
the above represent the extreme claims of the papacy
letter of henry 4th 1076 challenges pope gregory and the latter excommunicates him with the result that he does penence at canossa in 1077...'there, having laid aside all the belongings of royalty, wretchedly, with bare feet and clad in wool, he continued for three days to stand before the gate of the castle (in january)'...where the pope and his entourage were at the time
concorday of worms, 1122 this is the settlement of the investiture quarred between the emperors and popes both sides gave in a little, but it would seem that in germany the emperor had managed to keep the upper hand
coronation oath of king henry 1st, 1100 (son of william the conqueror)..which followed the ancient wording..in the name of Christ i promi9se these three things to the christian people subject to me. in the first place, i will devote my rule and power to all men in order that all christian people and the church of God may serve the true peace according to our command for all times; again, i forbid all rapacity and injustice to all classes of men; thirdly, i command that there be mercy and fairness in all judgments, so that a compassionate and clement God may grant mercy to me and to you.
henry made some 'campaign promises' in 11o1, which never being kept, resurfaced when the discontented barons
1204 fall of constantinople by the combined forces of the venetians and crusaders meant that the richest city in the christian world was open to plunder by the victors
twelth century, the ordeal - fire, hot and cold water, hot iron and combat - was an appeal to the judgment of God. the verdict was often absolute, that is to say, in ordeal by combat there was no such thing as being partially defeated: somebody won and somebody lost. on the other hand there was considerable leeway available to those who prescribed an ordeal..say, by fire, had size of the fire, distance apart of the two piles, speed at which the accused must pass between them. finally how long must the person survive the ordeal in order to prove his innocence?
the inquisition, to searching out of heretics - those whose faith took them outside the framework of the roman church - in order to get them to confess their errors and reenter the church or be tortured to death in a variety of ways was common from the 1100s and lasted several centuries. several targets were the albigensians, who flourished especially in southern france and were the victims of a crusade and the waldensians, founded about 1174 by peter waldo, a merchant of lyons. this latter group somehow survived the inquisition and is still in existence in northwest italy. this group was interesting in that it finally took to defending itself from slaughter and the near universal practice of its adherents of memorizing the new testament and large portions of the old.
st. thomas aquinas (1225-74) on the inquisition..article 3 whether heretics should be tolerated. i reply that, with regard to heretics, two considerations are to be kept in mind: 1. on their side, 2 on the side of the church.
1 there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the church by excommunication, but also to be shut off from the world by death. for it is a much more serious matter to corrupt faith, thru which comes the soul's life, than to forge money, thu which ctemporal life is supported. hence if forgers of money or other malefactors are straightway fustly put to death by secular princes, with much more justice can heretics, immediately upon conviction be not only excommunicated but also put to death.
2 but on the side of the church there is mercy, with a view to the conversion of them that are in error; and therefore the chuch coes not straightway condemn, but after a first and second admonition (titus 3.10) after that, if he be found still stubborn, the church gives up hope of his conversion and takes thought for the safety of others, by separatin him from the church by sentence of excommunication; and further, leaves him to the secular court, to be exterminated from the world by death...
1200 france is placed under the interdict by innocent III..the reason for this interdict was the refusal by king philip II augustus of france to put aside agnes of meran for his wife ingeburg of denmark whom he had married and separated from in 1193...in effect the interdect accomplished for a territory what excommunication did for an individual. it begins...'let all the churches be closed' and ends ...'extreme unction, which is a holy sacrament, may not be given.
1215 magna carta while the 'freeman' of article 39 is usually held to mean a baron, the idea slowly developed that this document provided fundamental rights for all people and not one class.
1200 charter by king philip augustus to the university of paris
1223 rule of st. francis..'observe the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, living in obedience, without personal posessions and in chastity
1253 the alliance of german towns to protect their merchants who were subject to perils and inconveniences. such associations were quite common and they even obtained privileges from monarchs
1279 the statute of mortmain. the purpose of this act of edwardI of england was to prevent lords from fraudulently garanting land to the church in order to escape their feudal obligations. the church was often successful in evading feudal dues to the detriment of the sovereign, and so it is to receive land only with his permission.
1296 bull clericis laicos for several centuries princes had received money from the clergy under various arrangements and compromises; during the crusades they had combined their resources. but by the end of the thirteenth century the kings of england and france were more hard pressed for funds than ever and in 1295 edward I and philip IV asked for contributions from their clergy for the war they planned in gascony. pope boniface VIII, a fiery and ambitious old italian noble, for bade the clergy to give usch funds by this bull
1345 venetian trade with the mongols christian merchants in italy and southern france maintained commercial relations for the greater part of the medieval period with the infidel.
1348 the black death in which on the average one-third to one-half of the population died in two years...sheep and cattle wandered thru fields and among crops and there was no one who was concerned to drive and collect them, but an unknown number died in ditches and hedges throughout every region for lack of herders. for there was such a lack of servants and helpers that there was no one who knew what he ought to do...
the workers, nevertheless, were so elated and contrary that they did not heed the mandate of the king (prohibiting higher wages) but if anyone wanted to hire them, he had to give them as they desired; either lose their crops and fruit or grant the selfish and lofty wishes of the workers...
after the aforesaid pestilence, many large and small buildings in all the cities, boroughs and villages collapsed and were levelled with the earth for lack of inhabitants; likewise many villages and hamlets were deserted. no house was left in them for every
one who had lived in them had died and it was probable that many such villages were never to be inhabited again..
1356 the golden bull... in the century following the death of frederick Ii in 1250, the princes, lay and ecclesiastical, of germany had gathered to themselves practically all the powers of the german crown that he had not laready granted away. the imperial and royal title remained as an anachronism. of all the pronces and nobles, the seven who elected the holy roman emperor were in many ways pre-eminent. emporer chrles IV undertook to define this group, ascribe certain functions to it, and obtain privileges for his kingdom of bohemia in the golden bull, which is a kind of fundamental law.
john wycliffe (1324-1384) on confession. he is best known for his translation of the bible into english, yet this was not as serious to his contemporaries as his ideas on the doctrine of the church. among others, his view of confession was considered heretical. like the later reformers in the early 1500s he went back to the practices of the early church.
'..when a man is constrained by bodily pain to tell his guilt, he confesseth not; but confession must be wilful or else it is not helpful to man...(the question) whether privy confession made to priests be needful to sinful men and whether this confession is grounded. and it seemeth that it is not needful, byt brought in late by the devil; for omniscient Christ used it not, nor any of His apostles after. and if it wer needful to man, Christ would have used it or tught it...and thus it seemeth to many men that christian men might well be saved without such confession...'
1381 the great revolt by peasants and artisans in england
1417 council of constance condemns john hus of bohemia to be burned at the stake for heresy
1431 sentence of the church against joan of arc for heresy...joan, commonly called the maiden...various errors and diverse crimes of schism, idolatry, invocation of demons and several other misdeeds
1451 end of the 100 years' war...france drives england out of all areas but calais
1458 the merchant starts out ..'the dignity and offic of merchants is great and exalted in many respects...' this was written by a merchant in naples and was contemporary with the fall of constantinople and the end of the 100 years war. the status of merchants had changed appreciably in 400 years,..they rose to a position where they would dominate the feudal lords of europe..
c.s. lewis, mere christianity...christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. it therefore has nothing (as far as i know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. it is after you have realized that there is a real moral law and a power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that power - it is after all this and not a moment sooner that christianity begins to talk. when you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. when you have realized that your position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the christians are talking about. they offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. they offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the moral law and yet also a person. they tell you how the demands of this law, which you and i cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how god Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God...i quite agree that the christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. but it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay i have been describing and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. in religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. if you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.
john wooden, they call me coach...webster partially defines faith as an unquestioning belief in God with complete trust, confidence and reliance. faith is not just waiting, hoping and wanting things to happen. rather it is working hard to make things happen and realizing that there are no failures - just disappointments - when you have done your best.
i have a whole georges tool rental booklet full of poop...oh it would be wonderful to share with you all that is happening in my heart but that is impossible. Jesus is so precious and i pray that He would be my love...that my heart and mind would be His alone...that every lull thot would go to Him...that more and more He would be...well that i would be in His presence..waiting, talking, quiet, petitioning, meditating on His words, praising, interceding, crying out, embracing...that His pleasure would be the goal of my life.
for lack of time i'll see how many thots from today i can share...carrying the oatmeal, eggs, etc. pot over to my morning memorization/meditation spot, my arm began to hurt. so i held the pot with both hands to bring relief. the mind went to persecution and began ruminating on a new model, one i had not considered before...refusing to allow any person to drive me...refusing to fear any person or what they could do to me..if put to labor slowing or stopping if necessary and REFUSING quietly and graciously, Christ being my master, refusing subservience...He showed the way on the way to the cross.
do you have a readiness to die? i think of paul..'when we heard these things, both we and they of that place, besought him not to go up to jerusalem. then paul answered, 'what mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for i am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus'...' oh Lord bring my heart to beat with Yours.
horrible things happen in churches constantly. one has several options i think of 1. judge Jesus by His professed followers and desert the place of His choosing and His working!...having loved this present world. 2. acclimate to it and become scummy and reprehensible yourself. 3. rebuke the darkness there and willingly be rejected and despised for speaking the truth and taking a stand with Jesus, 'outside the gates' if necessary.
today on a baking, sun-drenched deck my shirt becoming sopping wet as i scrape and sand. then at of nowhere the sun disappears, a cool breeze kicks up, a few drops of rain (will it be a downpour?)...keep working...rain stops..it has actually through its gentle moistening aided the scaping and i am refreshed and rejuvenated. the clouds cover me, the gentle wind blows moving me mysteriously out of the blast furnace until the sun goes far enough that when it returns i am in the shade of the house..a whisper-kiss from God.
hope you have a good week and that you can all be at 54 for aunt eileen's 62nd bday party on 8.14 at 6. love, dad
read practical modern basketball (parts) written by john wooden after reading they call me coach. even though it was more technical than interested me wooden's style of writing was so good that i found myself reading with pleasure and an increasing knowledge of basketball. as encouraged as i was seeing God use cam i was definitely set back reading this. wooden is the model of discipline. i the model of undiscipline. he is so far above that i do not even have any inclination toward becoming more disciplined...i'm not even on the map.
basic documents in medieval history a compilation by norton downs of little revealing snippets was helpful.
persecution of christians in the roman empire ended in the early 300s
at this time heresy was checked by churchwide councils
roman empire overrun by germanic peoples toward the end of 300s
english church was organized around 600
charlemagne named holy roman emperor 800
revival of learning at this time
beginnings of russia 860
swedes and russia 922 since i am .5 swede and i have not yet died utterly to ethnic pride i reprint what was written under this head, which i found enlightening, interesting and entertaining...as part of the general expansion of scandinavian peoples in the ninth century, the swedes sailed down the rivers of western russia. they extablished the russian state based on kiev and by their contacts with the byzantine and moslem empires developed a wealthy and cosmopolitan realm. they were active traders, as the quantity of arabic and greek gold coins found in sweden indicates. the following account is by a moslem sent out from bagdad..
'i saw how the northmen had arrived with their wares, and pitched their camp beside the volga. never did i see people so gigantic; they are as tall as palm trees and florid and ruddy of complexion. the men among them wear a garment of rough cloth, which is thrown over one side, so that one hand remains free. every one carries an axe, a dagger and a sword and with these weapons they are never seen. their swords are broad, withwavy lines and of frankish make. from the tip of the fingernails ato the neck, each man of them is tattooed with pictures of trees, living beings and other things. the women carry vastened to their breast, a little case of iron, copper, silver or gold, according to the wealth and resources of their husbands. fastened to the case they wear a ring and upon that a dagger, all attached to their breast. about their necks they wear gold and silver chains...(account of a norse funeral culminating in the cremation of the body)..the pile was soon aflame, then the ship, finally the tent, the man and the girl and everything else in the ship a terrible storm began to blow up and thus intensified the flames and gave wings to the blaze.
at my side stood one of the northmen and i heard him talking with the interpreter, who stood near him. i asked the interpreter what the northman had said and received this answer: 'you arabs, he said, must be a stupid set! you take him who is to you the most revered and beloved of men and cast him to the ground, to be devoured by creeping things and worms. we, on the other hand, burn him in a twinkling, so that he instantly, without a moment's delay, enters into paradise.' at this he burst into uncontrollable laughter, and then continued, 'it is the love of the master (God) that causes the wind to blow and snatch him away in an instant'...
therupon they heaped over the place where the ship had stood something like a rounded hill, and , erecting on the center of it a large birchen post, wrote on it the name of the deceased, along with that of the king of the northmen. having done this, they left the spot.
in rereading this i am helped. pride, criticism of others, a big mouth...i am right in the line.
treaty between alfred and guthrum 886 the danes had invaded england , but the tide was turned when king alfred of wessex defeated the danish king guthrum in 878 and retreated to the area thereafter called the danelaw. alfred was recognized by the english outside the danelaw as their king and thus the beginning of english political unity
norse sea adventures 1000 the destruction that the norse and danes wrought on europe and england was enormous. but it must be admitted that they were singularly daring sailors and competent navigators as their sailing across the north atlantic testify. they settled in iceland about 874, about 986 some settled in greenland and about 1000 leif eriksson found vinland the good (cape cod?_)
under the merovingian kings , a BENEFICE was usually a grant of land to a church or monastery by which the grantor held life use (usufruct) of the property in return for some pious service by the grantee. in about 732 charles martel, looking for means to provide for a cavalry force to repel moslem raiders, compelled the curch to grant benefices to laymen in return for their agreement to fight with him. kings and powerful laymen granted benefices to those woo served them as a formof payment. after the collapse of the carolingian empire, benefices held by individuals tended to become hereditary because the monarch was too weak.
grant of immunity, seventh century as was the case with benefices, grants of immunity were probably first received by the church. it is evident that they would be much sought after by laymen, because they brought freedom from much royal interference.
formula of commendation, seventh century germans had a custom whereby lesser men would voluntarily place themselves under the protectyion of stronger men. the former would receive protection and in return would perform certain duties for the latter.
charters of homage and fealty show the mutual obligations of lord and bvassal in feudalism.
dependency of the papacy - the papacy held vast amounts of land throughout europe from which it received income and services . it needed and developed an elaborate organization to collect its due..
services due a villein.. john of cayworth held his land from battle abbey and it was part of the manor of bernehorn in sussex, england the manor consisted of over 682 acres, of which 489 acres were in the demesne and the remaining 193 were divided among eight free tenants, 7 villeins and 18 cotters. the services and status of hjohn were about those of the typical serf..some of the services produced a loss for the lord; as thses instances increased, the land lord tended to fee his serfs. they would then be available for work at daily wages, which would cost him less than servilde labor.
dictatus papae, 1075 from(?) pope gregory 7th
the roman church was founded by god alone
the roman pontiff alone can with right be called universal
he alone can depose of reinstate bishops
in a council, his legate, even if a lower grade, is above all bishops and can pass sentence of deposition against them.
the pope may depose the absent
among other things, we ought not to remain in the same house with those excommunicated by him
for him alone is it lawful, accoring to the needs of the time, to make nes laws, to assemble together new congregations, to make an abbey of a canonry and, on the other hand, to divide a rich bishopric and unite the poor ones
he alone may use the imperial insignia
of the pope alone all princes shall kiss the feet
his name alone shall be spoken in the churches
this is the only name in the world
it may permitted to him to depose emperors
he may be permitted to transfer bishops if need be
he has power to ordain a clerk of any church he may wish
he who is ordained by him may preside over another church, but may not hold a suborinate position and that such a one may not receive a higher grade from any bishop
no synod shall be called a general one without his order
no chapter and no book shall be considered canonical without his authority a sentence passed by him may be retracted by no one and he himself, alone of all, may retract it
he himself may be judged by no one
no one shall dare to condemn one who appeals to the apostolic chair
to the latter should be referred the more important cases of every church
the roman church has never erred; nor will it err to all eternity, the scriptures bearing witness
the roman pontiff, if he have been canonically ordained, is undoubtedly made a saint...
by his command and consent, it may be lawful for subordinates to bring accusations
he may depose and reinstated bishops without assembling a synod
he who is not at peace with the roman church shallnot be considered catholic
he may absolve subjects from their fealty to wicked men
the above represent the extreme claims of the papacy
letter of henry 4th 1076 challenges pope gregory and the latter excommunicates him with the result that he does penence at canossa in 1077...'there, having laid aside all the belongings of royalty, wretchedly, with bare feet and clad in wool, he continued for three days to stand before the gate of the castle (in january)'...where the pope and his entourage were at the time
concorday of worms, 1122 this is the settlement of the investiture quarred between the emperors and popes both sides gave in a little, but it would seem that in germany the emperor had managed to keep the upper hand
coronation oath of king henry 1st, 1100 (son of william the conqueror)..which followed the ancient wording..in the name of Christ i promi9se these three things to the christian people subject to me. in the first place, i will devote my rule and power to all men in order that all christian people and the church of God may serve the true peace according to our command for all times; again, i forbid all rapacity and injustice to all classes of men; thirdly, i command that there be mercy and fairness in all judgments, so that a compassionate and clement God may grant mercy to me and to you.
henry made some 'campaign promises' in 11o1, which never being kept, resurfaced when the discontented barons
1204 fall of constantinople by the combined forces of the venetians and crusaders meant that the richest city in the christian world was open to plunder by the victors
twelth century, the ordeal - fire, hot and cold water, hot iron and combat - was an appeal to the judgment of God. the verdict was often absolute, that is to say, in ordeal by combat there was no such thing as being partially defeated: somebody won and somebody lost. on the other hand there was considerable leeway available to those who prescribed an ordeal..say, by fire, had size of the fire, distance apart of the two piles, speed at which the accused must pass between them. finally how long must the person survive the ordeal in order to prove his innocence?
the inquisition, to searching out of heretics - those whose faith took them outside the framework of the roman church - in order to get them to confess their errors and reenter the church or be tortured to death in a variety of ways was common from the 1100s and lasted several centuries. several targets were the albigensians, who flourished especially in southern france and were the victims of a crusade and the waldensians, founded about 1174 by peter waldo, a merchant of lyons. this latter group somehow survived the inquisition and is still in existence in northwest italy. this group was interesting in that it finally took to defending itself from slaughter and the near universal practice of its adherents of memorizing the new testament and large portions of the old.
st. thomas aquinas (1225-74) on the inquisition..article 3 whether heretics should be tolerated. i reply that, with regard to heretics, two considerations are to be kept in mind: 1. on their side, 2 on the side of the church.
1 there is the sin, whereby they deserve not only to be separated from the church by excommunication, but also to be shut off from the world by death. for it is a much more serious matter to corrupt faith, thru which comes the soul's life, than to forge money, thu which ctemporal life is supported. hence if forgers of money or other malefactors are straightway fustly put to death by secular princes, with much more justice can heretics, immediately upon conviction be not only excommunicated but also put to death.
2 but on the side of the church there is mercy, with a view to the conversion of them that are in error; and therefore the chuch coes not straightway condemn, but after a first and second admonition (titus 3.10) after that, if he be found still stubborn, the church gives up hope of his conversion and takes thought for the safety of others, by separatin him from the church by sentence of excommunication; and further, leaves him to the secular court, to be exterminated from the world by death...
1200 france is placed under the interdict by innocent III..the reason for this interdict was the refusal by king philip II augustus of france to put aside agnes of meran for his wife ingeburg of denmark whom he had married and separated from in 1193...in effect the interdect accomplished for a territory what excommunication did for an individual. it begins...'let all the churches be closed' and ends ...'extreme unction, which is a holy sacrament, may not be given.
1215 magna carta while the 'freeman' of article 39 is usually held to mean a baron, the idea slowly developed that this document provided fundamental rights for all people and not one class.
1200 charter by king philip augustus to the university of paris
1223 rule of st. francis..'observe the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, living in obedience, without personal posessions and in chastity
1253 the alliance of german towns to protect their merchants who were subject to perils and inconveniences. such associations were quite common and they even obtained privileges from monarchs
1279 the statute of mortmain. the purpose of this act of edwardI of england was to prevent lords from fraudulently garanting land to the church in order to escape their feudal obligations. the church was often successful in evading feudal dues to the detriment of the sovereign, and so it is to receive land only with his permission.
1296 bull clericis laicos for several centuries princes had received money from the clergy under various arrangements and compromises; during the crusades they had combined their resources. but by the end of the thirteenth century the kings of england and france were more hard pressed for funds than ever and in 1295 edward I and philip IV asked for contributions from their clergy for the war they planned in gascony. pope boniface VIII, a fiery and ambitious old italian noble, for bade the clergy to give usch funds by this bull
1345 venetian trade with the mongols christian merchants in italy and southern france maintained commercial relations for the greater part of the medieval period with the infidel.
1348 the black death in which on the average one-third to one-half of the population died in two years...sheep and cattle wandered thru fields and among crops and there was no one who was concerned to drive and collect them, but an unknown number died in ditches and hedges throughout every region for lack of herders. for there was such a lack of servants and helpers that there was no one who knew what he ought to do...
the workers, nevertheless, were so elated and contrary that they did not heed the mandate of the king (prohibiting higher wages) but if anyone wanted to hire them, he had to give them as they desired; either lose their crops and fruit or grant the selfish and lofty wishes of the workers...
after the aforesaid pestilence, many large and small buildings in all the cities, boroughs and villages collapsed and were levelled with the earth for lack of inhabitants; likewise many villages and hamlets were deserted. no house was left in them for every
one who had lived in them had died and it was probable that many such villages were never to be inhabited again..
1356 the golden bull... in the century following the death of frederick Ii in 1250, the princes, lay and ecclesiastical, of germany had gathered to themselves practically all the powers of the german crown that he had not laready granted away. the imperial and royal title remained as an anachronism. of all the pronces and nobles, the seven who elected the holy roman emperor were in many ways pre-eminent. emporer chrles IV undertook to define this group, ascribe certain functions to it, and obtain privileges for his kingdom of bohemia in the golden bull, which is a kind of fundamental law.
john wycliffe (1324-1384) on confession. he is best known for his translation of the bible into english, yet this was not as serious to his contemporaries as his ideas on the doctrine of the church. among others, his view of confession was considered heretical. like the later reformers in the early 1500s he went back to the practices of the early church.
'..when a man is constrained by bodily pain to tell his guilt, he confesseth not; but confession must be wilful or else it is not helpful to man...(the question) whether privy confession made to priests be needful to sinful men and whether this confession is grounded. and it seemeth that it is not needful, byt brought in late by the devil; for omniscient Christ used it not, nor any of His apostles after. and if it wer needful to man, Christ would have used it or tught it...and thus it seemeth to many men that christian men might well be saved without such confession...'
1381 the great revolt by peasants and artisans in england
1417 council of constance condemns john hus of bohemia to be burned at the stake for heresy
1431 sentence of the church against joan of arc for heresy...joan, commonly called the maiden...various errors and diverse crimes of schism, idolatry, invocation of demons and several other misdeeds
1451 end of the 100 years' war...france drives england out of all areas but calais
1458 the merchant starts out ..'the dignity and offic of merchants is great and exalted in many respects...' this was written by a merchant in naples and was contemporary with the fall of constantinople and the end of the 100 years war. the status of merchants had changed appreciably in 400 years,..they rose to a position where they would dominate the feudal lords of europe..
c.s. lewis, mere christianity...christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. it therefore has nothing (as far as i know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. it is after you have realized that there is a real moral law and a power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that power - it is after all this and not a moment sooner that christianity begins to talk. when you know you are sick, you will listen to the doctor. when you have realized that your position is nearly desperate you will begin to understand what the christians are talking about. they offer an explanation of how we got into our present state of both hating goodness and loving it. they offer an explanation of how God can be this impersonal mind at the back of the moral law and yet also a person. they tell you how the demands of this law, which you and i cannot meet, have been met on our behalf, how god Himself becomes a man to save man from the disapproval of God...i quite agree that the christian religion is, in the long run, a thing of unspeakable comfort. but it does not begin in comfort; it begins in the dismay i have been describing and it is no use at all trying to go on to that comfort without first going through that dismay. in religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. if you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end: if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth - only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with and, in the end, despair.
john wooden, they call me coach...webster partially defines faith as an unquestioning belief in God with complete trust, confidence and reliance. faith is not just waiting, hoping and wanting things to happen. rather it is working hard to make things happen and realizing that there are no failures - just disappointments - when you have done your best.
i have a whole georges tool rental booklet full of poop...oh it would be wonderful to share with you all that is happening in my heart but that is impossible. Jesus is so precious and i pray that He would be my love...that my heart and mind would be His alone...that every lull thot would go to Him...that more and more He would be...well that i would be in His presence..waiting, talking, quiet, petitioning, meditating on His words, praising, interceding, crying out, embracing...that His pleasure would be the goal of my life.
for lack of time i'll see how many thots from today i can share...carrying the oatmeal, eggs, etc. pot over to my morning memorization/meditation spot, my arm began to hurt. so i held the pot with both hands to bring relief. the mind went to persecution and began ruminating on a new model, one i had not considered before...refusing to allow any person to drive me...refusing to fear any person or what they could do to me..if put to labor slowing or stopping if necessary and REFUSING quietly and graciously, Christ being my master, refusing subservience...He showed the way on the way to the cross.
do you have a readiness to die? i think of paul..'when we heard these things, both we and they of that place, besought him not to go up to jerusalem. then paul answered, 'what mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for i am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus'...' oh Lord bring my heart to beat with Yours.
horrible things happen in churches constantly. one has several options i think of 1. judge Jesus by His professed followers and desert the place of His choosing and His working!...having loved this present world. 2. acclimate to it and become scummy and reprehensible yourself. 3. rebuke the darkness there and willingly be rejected and despised for speaking the truth and taking a stand with Jesus, 'outside the gates' if necessary.
today on a baking, sun-drenched deck my shirt becoming sopping wet as i scrape and sand. then at of nowhere the sun disappears, a cool breeze kicks up, a few drops of rain (will it be a downpour?)...keep working...rain stops..it has actually through its gentle moistening aided the scaping and i am refreshed and rejuvenated. the clouds cover me, the gentle wind blows moving me mysteriously out of the blast furnace until the sun goes far enough that when it returns i am in the shade of the house..a whisper-kiss from God.
hope you have a good week and that you can all be at 54 for aunt eileen's 62nd bday party on 8.14 at 6. love, dad
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