Saturday, July 23, 2016

Paradox

I find myself in the midst of a paradox. On the one hand I am totally convinced that my recent move to Maryland was the right thing to do. I feel strongly that I am on the right spiritual path, and, in that way, I feel very good about my life’s events. On the other hand I am also lost, confused and impatient. As Thomas H. Green, S.J. says of the life of prayer; "We discover that it is only by giving ourselves away totally that we truly come to possess ourselves, that we are most free when most surrendered. We begin to realize that light is darkness and darkness light. We become lost in a trackless desert — and then, if we persevere despite our disorientation, we begin to realize that it is only being lost, in losing ourselves, that we are found." Life feels very good.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Dealing With Wordly Concerns

Well, having traveled a couple of thousand miles, I am now located in MD, looking for a house and feeling lost, frustrated, confused, peaceful, grateful or blessed depending on the moment. I tend to feel lost, frustrated and confused when I get lost or absorbed by worldly, fear based thoughts and actions like looking for a home or dealing with financial issues. I keep reflecting on comments like those of St. John of the Cross; "He should learn to remain in God’s presence with a loving attention and a tranquil intellect, even though this seems like idleness to him. Soon he will find little by little that a ‘divine calm and peace with a wondrous, sublime knowledge of God, enveloped in divine love, will be infused into his soul’" or the comments of Dubay, S. M.; "Immersion in God entails a being filled with Him, a divine inflowing. Biblical men knew well enough that this self-communication of God is the sole destiny of men."

This area is full of people very earnestly attempting to feel good about themselves through the accumulation of "money, power and prestige", something I have done as well. Personally I have found that "The unending yearnings of the human spirit are satisfied by nothing that can be measured, seen, heard or touched. To focus selfishly on anything in the created order is to be restricted and thus to fall that far short of full freedom." I have been practicing a lot of prayer and meditation each day.