Tag: No Man is an Island

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Current Events

Nothing New

I cannot make good choices unless I develop a mature and prudent conscience that gives me an accurate account of my motives, my intentions, and my moral acts.

The immature conscience is one that bases its judgments partly, or even entirely, on the way other people seem to be disposed toward its decisions. The good is what is admired or accepted by the people it lives with. The evil is what irritates or upsets them.

The immature conscience is not its own master. It is merely the delegate of the conscience of another person, or of a group, or of a party, or of a social class, or of a nation, or of a race. Therefore, it does not make real moral decisions of its own, it simply parrots the decisions of others. It does not make judgments of its own, it merely “conforms” to the party line.

It makes true love impossible. For if I am to love truly and freely, I must be able to give something that is truly my own to another. If my heart does not first belong to me, how can I give it to another? It is not mine to give!

Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”

There is nothing new under the sun.

What we bemoan now we bemoaned seventy years ago
Seven hundred years ago

What we give away now, we gave away then

The freedom Jesus promised
To burn at the stake
To defy a tank
To hang on the cross

For the truth

Grace and peace to you…
dw

Categories
Current Events

Bad Freedom

Freedom is more than a matter of aimless choice. It is not enough to affirm my liberty by choosing “something.” I must use and develop my freedom by choosing something good.

Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”

A so-called freedom
Riling people up
To tote their guns
And speak their hate

Bound by their forgetfulness
That the meek shall inherit the earth
And peacemakers be called the children of God

May they remember

Grace and peace to you…
dw

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Categories
freedom Poetry the real self

The Soul of Freedom

If I did not believe in God I think I would be bound in conscience to become an anarchist. Yet, if I did not believe in God, I wonder if I could have the consolation of being bound in conscience to do anything.

Conscience is the soul of freedom, it eyes, its energy, its life. Without conscience, freedom never knows what to do with itself. And a rational being who does not know what to do with [their self] finds the tedium of life unbearable. [They are] literally bored to death.

Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”

I’ve been stuck
Trying to find my voice
To hear it in the clamor of the others
Droning on about scandalous politics
Whining about the downfall of society
What people stoop to to pick up a buck
A pile of which will make them free
Free from something
I don’t know what
Not free from puzzling out
How to spend the next minute

I’ve been stuck
not wanting to say all that
Or just that
Because there is more to say
I know there is
If I can just listen for that voice
Still and small
Telling me to speak and act
Freely and truly

There it is

Could that be Conscience?

Grace and peace to you…
dw

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Categories
the real self

False Choices

We too easily assume that we are our real selves, and that our choices are really the ones we want to make…

Our choices are too often dictated by our false selves.

Hence I do not find in myself the power to be happy merely by doing what I like.

On the contrary, if I do nothing except what pleases my own fancy I will be miserable almost all the time.

Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”

I don’t know enough about brain chemistry to say anything much about it. But I understand that we can easily become like trapped rats poking whatever button we can find that results in a little dopamine poof. And then another. And then another, bigger poof. Each poof producing in our brains what we associate with pleasure. Followed by a lack of pleasure. Followed by looking for that button again. And, can we poke it a little harder and get a little bigger poof this time?

I have been that trapped rat. I have family members who were those trapped rats who I hope and pray found mercy and relief when they left the earth that had become to them a maze with no way out and all the buttons no longer sufficient.

We have thriving industries that depend on our false selves making the choices for us. Until we no longer have any power to choose anything but what we have become addicted to, perfect consumers.

God in heaven, be merciful to us, guide us to our true selves, to choices that don’t go poof.

Jesus, you came that we might have joy, abundantly, not dependent on dopamine and the pleasure pulses it gives. Inclusive of pleasure, yes; thank you. Requiring pleasure, no; thank you. Joy no one can take from us, not ‘like the world gives’. Thank you.

Grace and peace to you…
dw

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Categories
Current Events the real self

Living on the Doorstep of Hell

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.

Selfishness is doomed to frustration, centered as it is upon a lie.

To live exclusively for myself, I must make all things bend themselves to my will as if I were a god.

Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island, “Conscience, Freedom, and Prayer”

This from Thomas Merton brings to mind words of Jesus:

If your first concern is to look after yourself, you’ll never find yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you’ll find both yourself and me.

Matthew 10:39, Peterson, Eugene H.. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language . The Navigators. Kindle Edition.

You might be more familiar with the words this way:

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.

Harper Bibles. NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (Kindle Location 75096). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

I don’t even know where to start. Which strand of thoughts, of the many, do I pick up and try to pull from the knotted mess that’s there?

One is about the rampant corruption in politics in our country and around the world…bending all things to the will of powerful people.

Another is about the kind of economics that steals from the poor and gives to the already-wealthy…selfishness.

Another is about the stockpiling of weaponry, both nationally and individually…first concern is to look after yourself.

Another is about speech and how we choose to use it…exclusively for ourselves.

Each of these threads gets and deserves plenty of air time in our public discourse.

But I’m holding back the temptation to enter the fray.

Because maybe I need to start, to remember as best I can always to start, with the thread of my inner life.

The tragic and tragically flawed little god in there who rants and raves at even the smallest inconvenience daring to cross it’s path.

That spews all the correct answers to all the important questions and deserves accolades commensurate with this great wisdom, greater even than Solomon’s.

That can’t seem to go a day without chocolate of just the right darkness or coffee made from just the right bean brewed in just the right way.

Maybe that is the thread I should start with.

Maybe that little tyrant needs to be reminded about the quotes from Merton and Matthew first.

Before it commences tying all the other threads together into a tangle made in it’s own image.

Grace and peace to you…
dw

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