You don’t see me.
You cannot know me.
You see the effects of my presence.
You can see the things I do,
but you don’t really understand me
or have me figured out at all.
I’m hidden
under flesh and bone,
behind words and actions–
forms,
constructs,
labels–
created things.
I AM.
nothingness,
spaciousness,
emptiness,
the Mystery or Mysteries,
the Great Unknown.
Underneath it all
I have no name.
I AM ineffable.
I AM.
ⒸSarah S. Walters
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.” John 1:5
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises on you!” Is. 60:1
“The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the Sons of God.” Romans 8:19
“You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” Gal. 3:26
“Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You: as You have given Him power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.” John 17:1-2
“And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed,and all flesh shall see it together,for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” Is. 40:5
At the end of his life, St. Thomas Aquinas had what some believe was a beatific vision and stopped short of completing his work entitled the Summa Theoligiae.
“The end of my labors is come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.”
St. Thomas Aquinas
Consider the verses from 1 Corinthians 3:10-15.
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilledmaster builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
Arguably one of the world’s most brilliant minds, a theologian and a philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas made it his life’s work to try to prove the existence of God and make the case for Christ. Why then would he say that his life’s work was straw? If we are to take the words of the Apostle Paul seriously then we may conclude that the work of the Summa Theologiae was of St. Thomas’ own hands. He saw it clearly as a work of the flesh and not the Spirit. He knew his words would not survive the fire of purification.
The wisdom of God is foolishness to this world and the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. There is only so far a person can go on the logic and reason of the human mind. We must see the spiritual with spiritual eyes and put on the mind of Christ. Our own human understanding cannot comprehend the light that the Word provides.
Though St. Thomas Aquinas considered his work straw, the Catholic church went on to use his last work in the at the council of Trent during the counter-reformation. I wonder what the church would have become if they had not adopted a worldy interpretation of Scripture. Maybe one day soon, we’ll see what the Church can be when she submits to and walks in the Spirit.
How can I calm the noise in me?
Dive into the depths
To a place under the noise.
Under the noise
You are still there.
You have not left me alone.
You are always with me.
Your Spirit sits with my Spirit
In the quiet and stillness
Of my heart,
Under the noise.
That place that has been given to you
Your throne room
Where I meet with you–
Where You meet with me.
Under the noise.
It is a tale as old as time–the struggle between two ways of living in the world, and it is illustrated for us in the story of Cain and Abel in the Bible.
“In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the ground, while Abel, for his part, brought the fatty portion of the firstlings of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and dejected. Then the Lord said to Cain: Why are you angry? Why are you dejected? If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it.”
Genesis 4:3-7
In 1940, George Orwell wroote a book review of Mein Kampf. The following is from the last paragraph:
And [Hitler] has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them “I offer you struggle, danger and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet.[1]
Hitler understood somehow that man has two parts. On the one hand that they want comfort, ease, and safety, and on the other, that they need to fight for and struggle toward something to find meaning.
Read any children’s book or watch any movie with a hero and you find this to be true. The hero cycles from comfort, to a desire for or even a push into adventure, climaxes with the “hero” being brought to the brink of death, and then concludes with the journey back home to comfort and safety with stories of glory to shared around the campfire or in a village pub.
Human beings keep telling these stories because they are fundamentally true. They tell them because their soul longs for meaning. But there is another part to humanity that wants to be the lord of their own lives and everything they survey.
When one focuses their attention on “cleaning their room”, one chooses to be like Abel. Through sacrifice in the short-term, one plans for the long-term, being concerned for the welfare of others and caring more about relationships than possessions. By critically examining oneself and removing the parts that are unloving, unkind, and selfish, one willingly takes on the struggle toward a more whole human being, free of vices and rich in virtues, and looking for that which is meaningful and eternal.
If one doesn’t employ the “scalpel” to oneself, one will turn it into a “sword” toward their neighbor as Cain did with his brother. One will look at what another has and think that they somehow deserve it. If one’s mindset is that they are entitled to another man’s land, money, or wife, they will have no problem stealing, killing, and destroying their neighbor to get that which they desire. One, who makes the “other” into a sacrifice on the altar of self-importance, becomes their own god; everyone is lesser than, a thing to serve their needs and desires. Violence is hurled at the outer world and replaces the personal growth through struggle in the inner world.
[1] http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ebooks16/1600051h.html
A Bell and a Pomegranate 