A potential paradox/friction/confusion/fertile ground for mediation. (Or, I’m just missing a piece of the puzzle.) Justice = rendering what is owed to another 1) Question: What is the “what” that is owed to another? I have an internal sense of what is owed to others. Some words or labels: respect, love, kindness, compassion, help, service. […]
In further reflection on the song “Laughing With” (see lyrics and this post), the word transcendence has popped into my head. Paradox points to transcendence, to something more. To transcend means to rise above, to see more. It does not deny what is, it just gives a wider vision of what is, depth, a larger […]
The song “Laughing With” is haunting me in a good way. When I searched for the lyrics yesterday, one of the first sites that came up was one of those song meaning sites. I read through some of the comments. Some were debating if the song was really about God or if it was a […]
In The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich writes (after page 148): The act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act. It is an act of faith. We have seen that he who has the courage to affirm his being in spite of fate and guilt has not removed them. He remains threatened and […]
At the end of the movie Forrest Gump, Forrest, a man of limited “smarts”, laments the answer to a question that has bothered philosophers and theologians from ancient times. I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating accidental like on a breeze, but I think maybe it’s both. […]
My deepest desire and most longing want is to see the face of Jesus Christ. Based on one of the Beatitudes, my daily prayer is for God to purify my heart so that I may see Him, see Him in others, and for others to see Him in me. I often think or imagine or […]
Another parabox—joy and suffering, both come from love. A friend shared this meditative reflection with me recently. I asked permission to post it. I feel waves of suffering coming from within my being. It’s as if they are at regularly determined intervals and I am just riding them; allowing each one to bounce me up […]
I’m bad about shopping for books. I cannot stop in a bookstore without rummaging through the religion/faith section. If a book looks good, I’ll purchase it in hopes of reading it some day. Sometimes, I’ll start the new book the same evening, pushing other books back in the queue, and finish the book. Sometimes, I’ll […]
Part of me feels heavy with anticipation of Good Friday. The Passion always makes me hang my spiritual head low. All is His pain and suffering and loneliness. Part of me feels light and giddy with anticipation for Easter. The Easter Vigil Mass is my favorite Mass of the whole year. The joy is hard […]
Life is like a pearl: it needs a grain of sand at its center—death—as the irritant, the enemy, to stimulate the production of the mother-of-pearl of life around it. But death remains at its center. At the heart of life there is death. Death is our being. Man is mortal. — Peter Kreeft, Love is […]