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I'm covered in lies and that's okay
Jan. 31st, 2009 02:47 pmI have this tendency to idealize places - Prague, Halifax, London, Boston. Of all the places I've idealised it was Rome that was the cause of so much joy. The right climate, the right people, the oldest churches in Christendom beside ancient ruins of a bygone age that just...makes sense to me. Sometimes even more sense than my own society does. I thought that the eternal city was the answer to the eternal question: how are we to live?
I suppose I ought to explain what got said, why the thin threads of intellect that yet grasped for the seven hills snapped.
First, I perceive myself as unable to contribute to my salvation. I do nothing good, and visit far more sorrow than I do comfort on the people around me. I fail my duties, disrupt lives, and abuse what is good for the sake of using anger to soothe pain. I don't know...reading Thomas talk about transitory imperfect happiness (Prima Secundae Questions 1 through 5, for those of you playing the Summa Theologica home game) and how it isn't necessary made me think it actually is. That some happiness, some delight, some joy, some of the grace that makes life beautiful and true is necessary if we are to respond at all to the metaphysical, or even physical, Good which is the natural end of our lives.
This has two potential consequences, theologically. Either I am not intended for salvation, in which case atonement is limited, or my incapability is shared by all humanity, and we're all totally depraved. Either way, assenting to Calvinism makes all of Christianity unravel.
The gay thing was what did it most though. It always is. Fr. Nic said that the vows of sacred religion protect us from disorder or pride or the other things of which happiness doesn't consist, and that for the married the marriage vows do the same thing. So for everyone else, everyone who can't find a religious house or a home, the Church is content to leave them to the depredations of a fallen world. It's a meaningless point in the scheme of Theology, but it's like a deep wound - knowing that it won't kill me doesn't do anything to alleviate the pain.
I also realized that our entire philosophy and theology presumes reason. When reason fails a person, our ethical considerations, our soteriological considerations, everything but the idea of grace ex opere operato falls and you're left with no philosophical or theological framework for your life, just an unfulfilled promise that you'll be clothed more than the grass and fed more than birds.
The last thing is the oddest in some ways, because I don't usually have problems with Mariology. God preserved her from sin. It was a particular grace, but he did it - he said no more uncontrollable internal struggles, no more interior disorders. Sure, she still suffered because she was in a world affected by evil, but she was free. Why does he withhold from everyone else what he gave freely to some Judean woman 2000 years ago? Why her and not the rest of us? Why decide that everyone else should remain in bondage, unable to act, or love, or sing the songs of Zion?
Too many why's. Too much that means I don't know where I'm headed. I'm tired of feeling like this, and if He won't stop it, I want to know what will.
I suppose I ought to explain what got said, why the thin threads of intellect that yet grasped for the seven hills snapped.
First, I perceive myself as unable to contribute to my salvation. I do nothing good, and visit far more sorrow than I do comfort on the people around me. I fail my duties, disrupt lives, and abuse what is good for the sake of using anger to soothe pain. I don't know...reading Thomas talk about transitory imperfect happiness (Prima Secundae Questions 1 through 5, for those of you playing the Summa Theologica home game) and how it isn't necessary made me think it actually is. That some happiness, some delight, some joy, some of the grace that makes life beautiful and true is necessary if we are to respond at all to the metaphysical, or even physical, Good which is the natural end of our lives.
This has two potential consequences, theologically. Either I am not intended for salvation, in which case atonement is limited, or my incapability is shared by all humanity, and we're all totally depraved. Either way, assenting to Calvinism makes all of Christianity unravel.
The gay thing was what did it most though. It always is. Fr. Nic said that the vows of sacred religion protect us from disorder or pride or the other things of which happiness doesn't consist, and that for the married the marriage vows do the same thing. So for everyone else, everyone who can't find a religious house or a home, the Church is content to leave them to the depredations of a fallen world. It's a meaningless point in the scheme of Theology, but it's like a deep wound - knowing that it won't kill me doesn't do anything to alleviate the pain.
I also realized that our entire philosophy and theology presumes reason. When reason fails a person, our ethical considerations, our soteriological considerations, everything but the idea of grace ex opere operato falls and you're left with no philosophical or theological framework for your life, just an unfulfilled promise that you'll be clothed more than the grass and fed more than birds.
The last thing is the oddest in some ways, because I don't usually have problems with Mariology. God preserved her from sin. It was a particular grace, but he did it - he said no more uncontrollable internal struggles, no more interior disorders. Sure, she still suffered because she was in a world affected by evil, but she was free. Why does he withhold from everyone else what he gave freely to some Judean woman 2000 years ago? Why her and not the rest of us? Why decide that everyone else should remain in bondage, unable to act, or love, or sing the songs of Zion?
Too many why's. Too much that means I don't know where I'm headed. I'm tired of feeling like this, and if He won't stop it, I want to know what will.
