Did you know that, on Easter Sunday, Orthodox congregations go into graveyards and sing hymns of Resurrection? There is something about that that I deeply love.
It's only the body that's dead; the soul, the usness of us cannot be created nor destroyed...the same as energy. An amphora - a clay vessel - is filled with water. If the amphora is smashed, does the water cease to exist? A clumsy metaphor, but the only one that comes to mind.
We are not our bodies, our bodies are animated by us, by soul or spirit, the intangible but vital essence Tolkien called the Secret Fire. I think Hawking was wrong, for once; the mind is not a computer that stops working when the components fail. That sounds like a reasonable if oversimplified description of the brain, but not the mind. The mind partakes of the Secret Fire and as such continues, albeit in a form we mere mortals can perceive only imperfectly if at all. But like the matter of which the body is made, that essence, that Fire cannot be created or destroyed.
Engelbert uses a lovely expression, the Lord calling one home. Of course, Engelbert is a Catholic, while Hawking apparently was an atheist, something I can't quite grok of a cosmologist. Anyway, Engelbert is right, though it doesn't seem a very popular concept: This earth, this universe where we are incarnated is only a place we are visiting. Our true home is Heaven, with God. The Secret Fire is from Him and of Him. So, when our bodies cease to function and earth returns to earth our essence, the Fire returns to Him. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, but there is such materialism now... I mean, when is the last time you heard the expression, 'the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?"
Of course, there's knowing all this and knowing all this. Phil has been gone fifteen years. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the last time I heard from him. It was such a normal e-mail, warm and loving and, well, normal. I had no idear it would be the last communication he ever made with me. And, it doesn't seem like fifteen years. It seems like I just talked to him yesterday, and I'll talk to him again tomorrow. It didn't, doesn't seem as though he went home and I should be pleased for him. It seems as though he was wrenched away from me, and I'll never be whole again. I miss him terribly, and I always will. My faith doesn't help...which probably means I don't understand my faith sufficiently or am not sufficiently committed to it.
On the other hand, if I did and were, I could have saved him. Substitutive suffering happens. It happened in C.S. Lewis' life. He was able to send his wife's cancer into remission...for a while. I didn't love Phil enough. If I had loved him more, were a better person, the cancer would have gone away. I have to live with that knowledge as well as with missing him.
Okay, so Hawking did say the brain. He's still mistaken IMO.
I truly cannot understand how anyone who studies the cosmos can fail to believe in a Creator, maybe not a Redeemer and a Paraclete, but certainly a Creator. Such beauty, such order, such vast, breathtaking existence simply could not arise at random ex nihilo! It's not logical. It's sort of like insisting a house didn't have a builder because you've never met the builder, or that a child didn't have a mother because you've never met her. And it's not that far from attributing what you can't understand to magic. *shrug* People are strange.
I can put your heart to rest on that score, Catreona. If love and substitutive suffering could save a person, Wil's brother would still be with us. He was always beloved and his wife of 39 years loved him so deeply she would have traded places with him were it possible. But he died slowly and terribly of pancreatic cancer. And now she is dying. In truth, we have no way to prove that Joy Lewis' remission was not a coincidence, and not a product of his suffering. And I, for one, do not believe in a God that expects us to suffer to save each other. What of Christ's suffering? Was that compelled by God? I dispute that theology. Remember that ALL theology is mere interpretation. I stand with the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor who wrote, in her book God In Pain: What if God's will for Jesus was long life and success, and his death on the cross wasn't 'the fulfillment of God's will' but the [temporary] frustration of it? Where is God in suffering and pain? Right there, experiencing it first. As the saying goes: God didn't stop the crucifixion, God rose from the dead.
As Lewis himself expressed...by a 'magic' far more ancient and powerful than that of the White Witch.
Susan...I agree it's mildly creepy too. But I still love it.
I mentioned to a Methodist clergy friend of mine that the Orthodox sing Resurrection hymns in graveyards and she said that any time I got the hankering to sing in a graveyard I'm welcome to the one across the street from her church. 😀 But I said that, were I to go and sing alone in the graveyard, someone might call for the paddy wagon. Adding: "You'll vouch for me?" To which she replied, "Yes! Laughing all the way!!" 😂
Finished An Acceptable Time. L'Engle wrote remarkable books! Late last night started Meet The Austins. Never read any of the Austin Family books. Not altogether sure I'm going to like it, but willing to give it a try. I suppose not all of her books can be about time travel, Cosmology and Philosophy/Theology.
The Pilgrim (1923 film)[Click] In the 1952 Sight & Sound poll, the great French film critic Andre Bazin picked The Pilgrim as one of the ten greatest movies of all time. (The YouTube link to the movie doesn’t work any more.)
Happy Pascha, Eastern Orthodox Easter Sunday.
ReplyDeleteDid you know that, on Easter Sunday, Orthodox congregations go into graveyards and sing hymns of Resurrection? There is something about that that I deeply love.
Um, actually I find that mildly creepy.
DeleteNot me.
DeleteAlan
It's only the body that's dead; the soul, the usness of us cannot be created nor destroyed...the same as energy. An amphora - a clay vessel - is filled with water. If the amphora is smashed, does the water cease to exist? A clumsy metaphor, but the only one that comes to mind.
DeleteWe are not our bodies, our bodies are animated by us, by soul or spirit, the intangible but vital essence Tolkien called the Secret Fire. I think Hawking was wrong, for once; the mind is not a computer that stops working when the components fail. That sounds like a reasonable if oversimplified description of the brain, but not the mind. The mind partakes of the Secret Fire and as such continues, albeit in a form we mere mortals can perceive only imperfectly if at all. But like the matter of which the body is made, that essence, that Fire cannot be created or destroyed.
Engelbert uses a lovely expression, the Lord calling one home. Of course, Engelbert is a Catholic, while Hawking apparently was an atheist, something I can't quite grok of a cosmologist. Anyway, Engelbert is right, though it doesn't seem a very popular concept: This earth, this universe where we are incarnated is only a place we are visiting. Our true home is Heaven, with God. The Secret Fire is from Him and of Him. So, when our bodies cease to function and earth returns to earth our essence, the Fire returns to Him. It's not a difficult concept to grasp, but there is such materialism now... I mean, when is the last time you heard the expression, 'the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?"
Of course, there's knowing all this and knowing all this. Phil has been gone fifteen years. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the last time I heard from him. It was such a normal e-mail, warm and loving and, well, normal. I had no idear it would be the last communication he ever made with me. And, it doesn't seem like fifteen years. It seems like I just talked to him yesterday, and I'll talk to him again tomorrow. It didn't, doesn't seem as though he went home and I should be pleased for him. It seems as though he was wrenched away from me, and I'll never be whole again. I miss him terribly, and I always will. My faith doesn't help...which probably means I don't understand my faith sufficiently or am not sufficiently committed to it.
On the other hand, if I did and were, I could have saved him. Substitutive suffering happens. It happened in C.S. Lewis' life. He was able to send his wife's cancer into remission...for a while. I didn't love Phil enough. If I had loved him more, were a better person, the cancer would have gone away. I have to live with that knowledge as well as with missing him.
Okay, so Hawking did say the brain. He's still mistaken IMO.
DeleteI truly cannot understand how anyone who studies the cosmos can fail to believe in a Creator, maybe not a Redeemer and a Paraclete, but certainly a Creator. Such beauty, such order, such vast, breathtaking existence simply could not arise at random ex nihilo! It's not logical. It's sort of like insisting a house didn't have a builder because you've never met the builder, or that a child didn't have a mother because you've never met her. And it's not that far from attributing what you can't understand to magic. *shrug* People are strange.
I can put your heart to rest on that score, Catreona. If love and substitutive suffering could save a person, Wil's brother would still be with us. He was always beloved and his wife of 39 years loved him so deeply she would have traded places with him were it possible. But he died slowly and terribly of pancreatic cancer. And now she is dying.
DeleteIn truth, we have no way to prove that Joy Lewis' remission was not a coincidence, and not a product of his suffering. And I, for one, do not believe in a God that expects us to suffer to save each other. What of Christ's suffering? Was that compelled by God? I dispute that theology. Remember that ALL theology is mere interpretation. I stand with the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor who wrote, in her book God In Pain:
What if God's will for Jesus was long life and success, and his death on the cross wasn't 'the fulfillment of God's will' but the [temporary] frustration of it? Where is God in suffering and pain? Right there, experiencing it first.
As the saying goes:
God didn't stop the crucifixion,
God rose from the dead.
As Lewis himself expressed...by a 'magic' far more ancient and powerful than that of the White Witch.
Cancer is a White Witch. Resurrection prevails.
Susan...I agree it's mildly creepy too. But I still love it.
DeleteI mentioned to a Methodist clergy friend of mine that the Orthodox sing Resurrection hymns in graveyards and she said that any time I got the hankering to sing in a graveyard I'm welcome to the one across the street from her church. 😀 But I said that, were I to go and sing alone in the graveyard, someone might call for the paddy wagon. Adding: "You'll vouch for me?" To which she replied, "Yes! Laughing all the way!!" 😂
♥Listener♥
DeleteThis, the Sunday after Easter Sunday, is Trinity Sunday (old style) or nowadays Mercy Sunday.
ReplyDeleteRandom link of the day:
Closed Timelike Curves - Click
Finished An Acceptable Time. L'Engle wrote remarkable books! Late last night started Meet The Austins. Never read any of the Austin Family books. Not altogether sure I'm going to like it, but willing to give it a try. I suppose not all of her books can be about time travel, Cosmology and Philosophy/Theology.
Actually, Trinity Sunday (I've never heard the term Mercy Sunday!) comes on the Sunday after Pentecost.
DeleteJPII initiated Mercy Sunday. I'll scare up links tomorrow. Too tuckered out just now.
DeleteRandom thought of the day:
ReplyDeleteThere's a fine line between caution and cowardice; and you can't always see which is which till afterwards.
Oh, I do like that "thought of the day"! It fits in right beside "There's a fine line between bravery and stupidity." 😀
ReplyDeleteA Landslide of Classic Art Is About to Enter the Public Domain[Click] For the first time in two decades, a huge number of books, films, and other works will escape U.S. copyright law.
ReplyDeleteAlan
The Pilgrim (1923 film)[Click] In the 1952 Sight & Sound poll, the great French film critic Andre Bazin picked The Pilgrim as one of the ten greatest movies of all time. (The YouTube link to the movie doesn’t work any more.)
DeleteAlan