Shattered

 

What! I looked at the phone and it looked at me, broken and shattered like a mute parable of the state of our nation. Seriously, what isn't broken right about now. Our governance, borders, elections, finance, and all that it is to come together as a country; who we are as a nation?

Shattered glass aside, I went into the T Mobile shop to get a fix for the phone I'd foolishly dropped the night before, "I need a new phone, this one's glass is shattered like the state of Union itself."

Bonnie Blue

Of course they could have got right on it but here's the thing, I was invisible to their system, off grid. No kidding, no IMEI, no social, no name, no nothing, the manager wasn't even allowed, by the system, to access my account. "What do you actually do?" he asked, "That," I replied, "is a very good question."

We looked at each other in a moment of understanding. "Look, man, all I want to do is sell you a phone, at the right price." I thought for a moment, "Yes, that's what I want too, we think as one." And we did.

Sure, it took a while, but in that time we talked of late antiquity, the ruins of Rome in the 6th century, Detroit, architecture as a reflection of the soul of a nation and how we're sadly wanting in that regard, and so much more besides.

Probyn

As time went interminably call-center on I amused myself by marching about the store and saluting, Brit style, various icons, images of phones. "Eyes Left!" Quite the drill movement, to say nothing of about turn on the march and let me tell you, all were impressed. As in open order, right dress! Ahem.

Militarist gymnastics over I checked out with a brand new nicely discounted phone, and learned that the manager of the shop's cousin(?) was a Captain and that his store associate had just left Ft. Hood after 4 years of service. 

She told me, "I cried when I left." She loved Ft. Hood and the Army and has serious disabilities to contend with. "I will pray for you," I offered, and meant it wholeheartedly. 

What a good store. I love these people and wish them well. By the left.

Your Old Friend,

LSP

Wisdom

 

 I was struck by this today, by Romano Guardini:

He simply commands us to follow his instructions. Only from the depths of a great faith is it possible to obey. One must be utterly convinced that such obedience evokes a divine reaction in our relationship with God, that when we act according to his will we participate in the divine creation, in the forming of a new world, for it is creative conduct that is commanded here.

When man so acts, he not only becomes good in himself and before God, but the divine goodness dormant in him becomes active power. This is what the Lord means when he speaks of "salt" that has not lost its flavor, "light" which lights the whole house.

 

The divine goodness dormant in him becomes active power; the seed of grace, God's life, unfolds with tremendous, unfathomable, brilliance in the souls of the faithful. Those with eyes to see will have have seen this light.

God bless,

LSP

Ascension Reflection

On Thursday we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension and, here in the Missions, carried the theme on to Sunday. Christ rises to heaven, Victim and Victor, taking his resurrected body up to glory, the glory that is the life of God himself. 

But how can anything corporal be assimilated by God who is pure Spirit (John 4:24)? Surely there's an unfathomable divide between the two. Perhaps this is helpful, by Romano Guardini:

...by comparison with the Holy Spirit, body and soul, matter and spirit, person and thing are all “carnal.” Between all these and the Living God lies not only the distance between Creator and creature; not only the distance which divides life in grace from life in nature; but also the infinite gulf between saint and sinner which only God’s love can bridge. Before this bottomless ravine, the difference between earthly body and soul shrinks into insignificance.

That God pardons the sinner and accepts the creature into his holy presence – this is the new and overwhelming message of Christ. Once we have assimilated this truth, the additional incomprehensibility of God’s accepting not only created spirit, but also created flesh, no longer seems great. His salutary love is directed not exclusively towards the “soul” but towards man in his entirety. The new, saved man is founded on the divine humanity of Jesus, and this humanity, begun in the Annunciation, was fulfilled in the Ascension. Not until Christ has entered into the intimacy of the Father, is he the perfect God-man.

What a scandal to our blinded and earthly sense, but what a cause for awestruck joy that humanity in Christ should be elevated above the angels to the life of God himself.

Here endeth the lesson,

LSP

Man-Made Being

Superman?

A churchman sent this in, from The Origins of Scientism by Voeglin:

“In retrospect the age of science will appear as the greatest power orgy in the history of mankind; . . . at the bottom of this orgy the historian will find a gigantic outburst of magic imagination after the breakdown of the intellectual and spiritual form of medieval high-civilization. The climax of this outburst is the magic dream of creating the superman, the man-made being that will succeed the sorry creature of God’s making.”

This is the End

That reminds me of Guardini's The End of the Modern World  (read it if you can) and I'd say it was pretty much right on target. So step away from the magic. Speaking of which, good to see Putin citing Berdyaev against the transnational secular elite, who seem hell-bent on recreating humanity in their own godless image.

I gave Holy Communion to five elderly ladies this morning. They were dicing when I arrived.

Well done,

LSP