The Wild Beasts

 ....to risk losing our balance and falling prey to the wild beasts waiting below.
This is from earlier posts...but it falls into the thoughts of Habitation of Dragons...those "snide little (*sometimes not so little) Christian sins...that are there to remind us of who we are...for some...especially those who are terribly wounded, (really wonder if deeply-wounded souls are not commonplace nowadays!), an unlooked for trigger pops us and wham! we wonder what happened to us.  On the mat, stunned, blankly staring upwards we first just have to stand up again...that may be the hardest step.
 Pro-Catholic site for culture war:
http://athanasiuscm.blogspot.com/

Reflections

Reflections from the Saints

Without humility, there is no way of conquering anger.

– St. John Climacus

http://actsoftheapostasy.blogspot.com/2010/03/subtle-slide-into-spiritual-pride.html

Weil Did Not Heed her Jewish Understanding of...

 TAFASTA MERUBAH LO TAFASTA.

It is said that it is harder to change one character flaw within ourselves than it is to learn the entire Talmud.

TAFASTA MERUBAH LO TAFASTA

Trying to do too much too soon will often backfire. TAFASTA MERUBAH LO TAFASTA. Taking on too much will leave you with nothing in the end   If we don't have vessels which have the capacity to contain this holy light energy, we will simply burst if we (attempt to) take on the full dose of Kedusha all at once. We must climb rung by holy rung up the ladder of Kedusha. To skip a rung is to risk losing our balance and falling prey to the wild beasts waiting below.
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This no aesthetic meandering.  To transgress proper boundaries, especially spiritual ones, often leads to delusion
and destruction...perhaps, in doing so, we sin by presumptuous pride to the extreme.
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On Weil:

What a terrible commentary.

"Weil's is the most comical life I have ever read about, and the most truly tragic and terrible." - Flannery O'Connor, letter, 1955

Lea Ann Payne wrote that 'Discerning the problem of evil and differentiating that from the Good,(is one of the major problems)…and this lack has given rise to the most crucial problem I’ve seen develop within the Church, that of a very real encroachment of alien gods(idols)….I will address two specific manifestations of this:

the rise of a Baal consciousness and of a new gnosticism within Christian circles---basically through Freud and Jung.

A.  The Need for Renouncing Baal---the god of sexual orgy
B.  the Need for Renouncing Gnostic dualism:  the problem of good and evil without the Cross '
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I would add another: equally dangerous for our soul:
C. The Need for Renouncing Legalism/Jansenism: Thank God for HIs Sacred Heart

Delusions

From the Itching Footnotes Blog:  'That troubling mystic Simone Weil wrote in Gravity and Grace: 

“We experience good only by doing it. We experience evil only by refusing to allow ourselves to do it, or, if we did it, by repenting of it.” As with so many of her gnomic sayings, I am not entirely sure what she meant by that. But I think it means that the aesthete’s and decadent’s life “beyond good and evil” is, in fact, a delusion; it is the embrace of evil as good. We experience good only by doing good, but we do not experience evil by doing evil, for in doing evil we make evil our good. The result is not life “beyond good and evil”; the result is the triumph of evil–a triumph more total because evil is not recognized as such. (As I Lay Dying: Meditations Upon Return, 25)'

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I am glad he prefaced Weil's name with 'troubling'.  Personally, I was drawn to her writings and its crystalline clarity and depth, but her self-destruction bent was dark.  She could not release her being to Christ, although she attempted it.
Lea Ann Payne's work is brought to mind here by his inclusion of this passage.  Her pastoral ministry has been concerned with the increasingly gnostic and Jungian inroads into Christianity and the devastating effects the inroads have brought to clergy and laity alike.

(Reference: “Renouncing False Gods and Appropriating the Holy” By Lea Ann Payne  cf. Jer. 2:23-25)

It has taken me my whole life to even begin the differentiation needed to distance my being's structure from these two ways of approaching the symbolic of our souls.  These inroads are much more dangerous for the soul and spirit than most people will ever know.
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Weil's intensity and depth, albeit at times creepy and delusional, did focus light on things most people would never even consider.  Her gnostic Existentialism, however, endlessly self-absorbed,  gripped her mind, soul and heart to the extreme.

The Passion

“He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.” (Isaiah 53:3-4)
Hebrew: הפסיון של ישו‎,The Passion of Christ.

Love in Truth

What is humility?

       Humility is staying at the foot of the Cross of Jesus and seeing ourselves as God sees us.

Humility is a way of being and it is shown through a person's words and actions. A person who shows great humility is said to be 'humble'. A humble person doesn't seek to make themselves look better than anyone else even if they have achieved really great things. Instead they

recognize that they, like ever yone else, have strengths and weaknesses.

They try to use their gifts to help others and to overcome their weaknesses. As Christians, we believe that our strengths are gifts from God, to be used wisely to bring God's love to others and to bring glory to God. We also believe that God helps us to overcome our weaknesses, if we remember to call on His help. A person who shows humility, uses their gifts to serve God and to help others but not to bring glory to themselves.

Jesus' whole life was an example of humility. When some of his disciples were arguing about which of them was the greatest he said, "If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all." (Mark 9:35) Jesus was the Son of God and he could have used this to gain himself power and fame. Instead he served others, helped the sick and downtrodden, forgave sinners and brought new hope to the poor. In humility he was crucified with two thieves. He showed us that in order to follow him, we too must put others' needs before our own, recognizing that our gifts and successes are given to us by God and are to be used to bring God's love to others. We must therefore show humility in our words and actions.

…she understood the meaning of Jesus’ words, “Unless you become like little children you will not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mark 10:15). Therese was aware of her strengths and her weaknesses. She believed that every good thing she did was done with God's help and she asked God to help her overcome her weaknesses. Therese acknowledged that she was not perfect and sometimes she found it difficult to get on with others in her community.

"We must never search for what seems big in human eyes."

[We must not try to appear better than we are; I call it “we are never stronger than the weakest part of us.”]

"What matters in life is not great deeds, but great love."

Love's Dilemma: The Paradox of Love

The double bind is an awful dilemma especially for children.  While it is commonplace in an imperfect world among imperfect people, the psychological and emotional control of others through the double bind is dramatically disturbing and destructive when it is the primary dynamic of a relationship.

Notes: From another blog site:

1. When the victim is involved in an intense relationship; that is, a relationship in which he feels it is vitally important that he discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that he may respond appropriately;
2. And, the victim is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message and each denies the other;
3. And, the victim is unable to comment on the messages being expressed to correct his discrimination of what order of message to respond to, i.e., he cannot make a metacommunicative statement.

There are two injunctions imposed upon on the victim by the other person basically. Also, it is a repeated experience. 

“The double bind is a recurrent theme in the experience of the victim and as such cannot be resolved as a single traumatic experience.”

The dilemma cannot be escaped in any way. The double bind experience is well summed up in the phrase “I must do it but I cannot do it.”

In addition, none of this is really clear to the victim. It is not a simple contradiction. The nature of the contradiction is really complex, and ends with the victim really WANTING to satisfy both contradictory injunctions and trying to, but not being able to. An inexpressible internal conflict is generated within the psyche.

He gives an example of such a dilemma in real life:

To Talk or not to Talk–to Somehow do Both?

I must talk to him or else all hope is lost. He will forget me, the love will vanish completely. He will have to move on.
But I cannot talk to him because he will not rediscover love for me during that process. He will gain satisfaction that he is getting some of me, and he will not be incited to analyze anything or make any decisions, and the casual talk will probably make the relationship really numb, dumb and unnecessary. Also, I cannot talk to him because I can’t keep talking to him and at the same time have to deal with thinking/obsessing about the possibility of getting back together. And those raised hopes will only result in disappointment, because, as I said, this option doesn’t lead to any renewal of love.

So I can’t talk, and I can’t not talk for two main reasons: nothing said will help us get better, and emotionally I cannot handle either.

To make the dilemma worse, I don’t know what I want, he doesn’t know what he wants; we’re both caught in the middle of wanting to go to the past and wanting to go to the future. How can I try to move on at the same time as thinking about getting back together?

But to make the dilemma better: luckily I trust God. God will lead us where he wants us to be. 

 In the psychosocial and emotional problems of the wounded:

But for some whose family/emotional/psychological dynamic worked out in constant dilemma, the double bind leads to an endless void of mazes to maneuver through with just about everyone.  Contact with others can be a torturous path to be avoided. 

Too, We learn that we cannot say things to people. When we were younger we had a fancy that we would seek and find relationships in which we could fully express ourselves. FULLY express ourselves. And then, experience after experience, and cultivated intuition tells us to draw boundaries often. There are some things we should not say. Telling the truth sometimes is the morally wrong thing to do....

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I have thought a lot about what he said...lately.

The Struggle to Love

I did not come up with that title on my own.  It came from the chapter in The Hidden Face by Gorres about the inner life of Therese of Lisieux.  At this point in my life, I have to continue with more intensity than ever this struggle for there continue the inevitable "double binds."  Personally, I believe these double bind 'paradoxes' in life are for some people their cross.  It has piqued my interest that she was deeply concerned about her ability to really love those around her. 

Amazingly I just found Friendship and Holiness by Msgr. Magee [National Conference Chicago August 6^th, 2004]. This article confirms what I have been experiencing from Therese's, Elizabeth of the Trinity's, and Elie Wiesel's truths of what God intends as friendship. 
Msgr. Magee wrote"...friendship will last forever. No greater love can someone have than to lay down his life for a friend: so friendship is not a convenience, but involves commitment and self-sacrifice, suffering and renunciation, perhaps of the ultimate kind. Friendship needs to be realistic, that is, grounded in truth and humility, not in fantasy or thinly-veiled selfishness.

A friend is not a means to an end, ...not there to be the object of my infantile or neurotic desires, but to be treasured like the “pearl of great price”....the goal of the Sacraments is the eternal communion of all men and women in God...(hopefully forever in Heaven)...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z9PVF27Btw&feature=related

Symphony

""Today, my charge is that you become someone who is in such perfect symphony with God, like the musical instruments in a 100-membered orchestra; a friend of God, not just His robot.
..remember that God called Abraham His friend, their friendship was such a remarkable one ...
a friend is one who is willing to share their secrets with you, (the secrets of the Lord is with them that fear Him and He would show them His covenant- psalm 25:14). God shared His secrets with Abraham and if He has shared some of His secrets with you, then i believe you are worth being called a friend of God. i may not have it all together but i know am His friend.

Relationships

"Be kind, everyone is fighting a great battle."

avodas Hashem

--- emotional problems are the direct result of being disconnected from God

…but separation from God is our lot…to try and dig out the thorn, and the pain is always there.

   We are always trying to reunite with God…we decrease pain when we draw closer to Him and increase our pain when we go away from Him…We may conclude, therefore, that we are all emotionally or mentally ill to some degree.  This internal imbalance may erupt

but more commonplace are the symptoms of sin…digressions from the God-given path…

our avodas Hashem…our balance…

Tafasta Merubah Lo Tafasta

It is said that it is harder to change one character flaw within ourselves than it is to learn the entire Talmud.

TAFASTA MERUBAH LO TAFASTA

Trying to do too much too soon will often backfire. TAFASTA MERUBAH LO TAFASTA. Taking on too much will leave you with nothing in the end. If we don't have the vessels which have the capacity to contain this holy light energy, we will simply burst if we take on the full dose of
Kedusha all at once. We must climb rung by holy rung up the ladder of Kedusha. To skip a rung is to risk losing our balance and falling prey to the wild beasts waiting below.

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Tafasta meruba lo tafasta (He who grabs too much grabs nothing)

Return again,*

Return again,

Return to the land of your soul.

Return to who you are,

Return to what you are,

Return to where you are born and reborn again.