Restrain your tongue from cursing, because with it you adore the Lord. - Commodianus
By every word we say, we do it in praise of the Lord. And with every praise of the Lord, that praise redounds to us as Life. The source of our speech may therefore be likened to the spring of a clean and crystalline stream. We do not want to pollute it or to treat it cheaply -- even if the desire to eat cheap and unworthy things is there, and we make our habitus there unworthily. So we don't litter it with our garbage, or delve too deeply such that we pierce an oil reserve and blacken the very fountainhead and well-spring of our own life.... Our long-term life will be the eventual fruit of our chastened tongue here-and-now.
Non-Dogmatic Desert Father Exploration
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Dimmesdale
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Dimmesdale
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Re: Non-Dogmatic Desert Father Exploration
Post #21Prayer is conversation with God. - St. Clement of Alexandria
The great Speaking, of the little wave with the Ocean. The little soul with the Infinite Soul. And yet the Infinite soul descends down, to us, so as to converse as a friend.... To speak with God is to speak with your deepest and most loving, non-judgmental Friend.... It is to go beyond mere formality and distance... it is to come to the point of vulnerability.. on both sides.. of disclosing things you would not otherwise disclose to others... in prayer, where you are accepted as being who you are... even if you are tired. even if your lispings and groanings are dry, dry as the grass... still, they are your own groanings, your own pain, and hopes and wishes.... God will incline His ear to you... if only you enter in by the golden door, of sincerity.
The great Speaking, of the little wave with the Ocean. The little soul with the Infinite Soul. And yet the Infinite soul descends down, to us, so as to converse as a friend.... To speak with God is to speak with your deepest and most loving, non-judgmental Friend.... It is to go beyond mere formality and distance... it is to come to the point of vulnerability.. on both sides.. of disclosing things you would not otherwise disclose to others... in prayer, where you are accepted as being who you are... even if you are tired. even if your lispings and groanings are dry, dry as the grass... still, they are your own groanings, your own pain, and hopes and wishes.... God will incline His ear to you... if only you enter in by the golden door, of sincerity.
Your faith is beautiful.
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Dimmesdale
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Re: Non-Dogmatic Desert Father Exploration
Post #22Wherever you may be, God will come to you, if the chambers of your soul be found of such a sort that He can dwell in you. - St. Gregory of Nyssa
You are loved. Forever and always. Whether you like it or not. But if you were cognizant of your true nature, you would be. You would naturally gravitate to love, voluntarily, by your own nature, if false ego were stripped away. But though we are all of us, as eternal units of consciousness, Loved, we are not Lov-able. Because to be Lovable is a matter of respecting the Other whom gives that Love and Associates with you. That Associate cannot (personally) coexist with a principle that is opposite of Him..... Can there be question of light if there is darkness? Just as there is not question of darkness without light, so too we must qualify ourselves in the right way so as to be receptacles of the Light that we also share in and are.
You are loved. Forever and always. Whether you like it or not. But if you were cognizant of your true nature, you would be. You would naturally gravitate to love, voluntarily, by your own nature, if false ego were stripped away. But though we are all of us, as eternal units of consciousness, Loved, we are not Lov-able. Because to be Lovable is a matter of respecting the Other whom gives that Love and Associates with you. That Associate cannot (personally) coexist with a principle that is opposite of Him..... Can there be question of light if there is darkness? Just as there is not question of darkness without light, so too we must qualify ourselves in the right way so as to be receptacles of the Light that we also share in and are.
Your faith is beautiful.
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Dimmesdale
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Re: Non-Dogmatic Desert Father Exploration
Post #23We cannot possibly scorn the gratification of food given to us, unless the mind is fixed on the contemplation of divine things, and is entranced instead with the love of virtue and the delight of things celestial. - St. John Cassian
Oh creature comforts and apathetic little pleasures.... We must rise to the comprehension of higher things.... Remain inspired! Remain inspired! Remain inspired to the great things of life, to the life that is in you. To the Lord who is sustaining your life at all points, and at all times and places... who is sustaining the heat and light at the basis of your soul, radiating through your whole body and all its nerves..... Exercise. Contemplate. Read. Pray and Meditate. Express yourself in Poetry and do not be afraid of taking up space! And yet, do all things with a fine finesse... Be bodily a model for your heavenly body. For your ethereal body. Make things below, as above. Be keen on higher things, without dishumbling yourself....
Oh creature comforts and apathetic little pleasures.... We must rise to the comprehension of higher things.... Remain inspired! Remain inspired! Remain inspired to the great things of life, to the life that is in you. To the Lord who is sustaining your life at all points, and at all times and places... who is sustaining the heat and light at the basis of your soul, radiating through your whole body and all its nerves..... Exercise. Contemplate. Read. Pray and Meditate. Express yourself in Poetry and do not be afraid of taking up space! And yet, do all things with a fine finesse... Be bodily a model for your heavenly body. For your ethereal body. Make things below, as above. Be keen on higher things, without dishumbling yourself....
Your faith is beautiful.
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Dimmesdale
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Re: Non-Dogmatic Desert Father Exploration
Post #24It is an impossibility that the fiery motions of the body can be extinguished before the incentives of the other chief vices are utterly rooted out. - St. John Cassian
He who thinks he has won a Victorious Spiritual Crown simply because he has spurned the lusts and inebrieties of the flesh has not even arrived at the first wrung of True Spirit..... It is humility, and desire, and sincerity, and a ridding of all internal poisons, that sets the soul most truly on its path.... Begin with the higher, and you will master the lower. Forego the Higher, and there be nothing that the Higher Controlling Power (which is uncontrolled) can do to rein in and master, and reign over the fickle and unsteady bodily appetites and passions......
He who thinks he has won a Victorious Spiritual Crown simply because he has spurned the lusts and inebrieties of the flesh has not even arrived at the first wrung of True Spirit..... It is humility, and desire, and sincerity, and a ridding of all internal poisons, that sets the soul most truly on its path.... Begin with the higher, and you will master the lower. Forego the Higher, and there be nothing that the Higher Controlling Power (which is uncontrolled) can do to rein in and master, and reign over the fickle and unsteady bodily appetites and passions......
Your faith is beautiful.
