Saturday, March 16, 2013

Evelyn Underhill - Mysticism 30


pp. 139-146

WORDS/PHRASES: DETACHMENT, HOLY INDIFFERENCE, POVERTY-CHASTITY-OBEDIENCE, A SCRAP OF THE COSMOS

"As  little as the bright eye can endure aught foreign in it, so little can the pure soul bear anything in it, any stain on it, that comes between it and God.  To it all creatures are pure to enjoy; for it enjoyeth all creatures in God, and God in all creatures."  --Eckhart, quoted in Mysticism.

"Since spiritual no less than physical existence, as we know it, is an endless Becoming, it too has no end."


So, it is not things that are bad, but one's attachment to them.  All sin is idolatry of some sort, i.e., treating things--or, in older parlance, creatures--as God.

p. 143 - "Poverty, then, prepares man's spirit for that union with God to which it aspires."
p. 145 - "...the paramount importance to the soul of an undistracted vision of reality."
     - "The true rule of poverty consists in giving up those things which enchain the spirit..."

isaiah 40:31



but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
   they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
   they shall walk and not faint.
 


Saturday, February 2, 2013

If Only

Je me souviens.  Toujours.

There's no escape, even now.  Stopped at Publix for a couple items.  Hadn't heard it in months.  Avoided it on YouTube.  But tormenting me from overhead, "You Make Me Smile."  Except not any more.

Saturday, January 26, 2013

I Take Comfort in Saul Become Paul

"That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.  Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.  But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison."

--Acts 8:1-3


"Money raised by evangelical Christians in the United States is fueling a violent antigay movement in Uganda, according to the “Gospel of Intolerance” by filmmaker Roger Ross Williams.

'American evangelicals are sending millions of dollars in donations to Africa to spread their message by funding Ugandan pastors and sponsoring missionaries, many of who do good work feeding the hungry and providing shelter to orphans,' Rev. Kapya Kaoma explained in the mini-documentary, which was published online Tuesday by the New York Times. “But some of that money just goes to feed a dangerous ideology that teaches that gays, lesbians, transgender, and bisexual people do not have a place in God’s kingdom and are a threat to society.”

Evangelicals from the United States have a strong influence in the deeply religious country, where antigay sentiments are mainstream. A number of Ugandans faced harassment and threats in 2010 after a newspaper published of list of alleged homosexuals. 

Kaoma said he was forced to flee the country after supporting LGBT rights.

Dolan, Eric W., "Film Exposes Link between U. S. evangelicals and violent anti-gay Ugandan movement."  2013. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/01/23/film-exposes-link-between-u-s-evangelicals-and-antigay-ugandan-movement/