Wonderful meditation, Stuart. I am especially struck by this idea of Christ as recipient of all experience. As you rightly stress, everything hinges upon integrating this reality and *live* according to it, not just give intellectual assent to it (as I do). But reflecting on why it is that I cannot *see* this reality, I was reminded of Matthew 6:22. Could we say that (and sorry if it belabors the point) only one whose eye is *simple* (as Christ's is) can see the good in what is ugly and gaze in love upon one's enemy?
Thank you, Jean-Michel. I think we're seeing the same thing: Yes.
If we focus on the world of plurality, we are like St. Peter whose attention falls into the tumultous waves of existence. But if we keep our attention fixed on Christ, we walk on water. If our attention is divided between "this and that" -- between what feels good and what feels bad subjectively -- we are drowning in the ocean of transience.
To see one's enemy only as an image (however distorted it may be!) of God and to love that because it's better than anything else -- I think that's the key. Now, someone may be seriously distorted -- as through a hall of mirrors dimly -- but to be able to see their reality in spite of what contorts their image. Only if the heart of my attention is not divided, but rather focused on one single object (which cannot be a transient object or my attention is immediately directed towards "keeping" that object) -- only then can I really love my neighbor as myself. In such a space, sin is only "seen" as a distortion of the lovely image in front of us, but we still love the image we can intuit even if the person in front of us can't fully embody it at the moment.
I see the crucifixion as the germinal point of creation (not Genesis) and the substrate on which all fluctating secondary existence hangs. The rising and falling of tides, the waxing and waning of the moon, the scorching of the earth in summer to the winter snows: this is all Christ crucified. It is the Son whose eternal crucifixion is never over as long as this world exists. Our existences hangs on Him. If we really could feel that, we would weep at every minor injustice we inflict on anyone, because anything Christ experiences (as eternal consciousness experiencing time) is always and forever experienced in the first person subjective. That means the cross, yes, and the resurrection. But it also means everything we ever do to anyone is forever experienced by Christ subjectively. The price of existence is a more enormous cost than is even thinkable. We are fortunate: we can forget what came before, while Christ cannot. We get to be washed in the blood of the lamb, but the lamb is something else. He stands "as slain" on the throne. But if we are grafted branches, if the rootstock ever stopped bleeding, the scions would perish. This is the cost of eternal life. It's enough to make my hands shake typing and to make my knees weak.
Amen! Amen, brother! Whenever I meditate on the Mystery of the Passion, I am almost always struck dumb, for it gathers All Things. I often drown even as I pray, like Peter in the waters of multiplicity, while I should only attend to Christ and contemplate Him. But that is another matter.
Yes, the Cross is the fulcrum upon which everything turns : stat crux dum volvitur orbis. Yet I had never seen before how the embrace of the Cross indeed seems to resolve the problem of the One and the Many (among other vexing philosophical aporia). How could it be otherwise? All things then, can be known, seen, experienced through the Cross. So then must we all decide, like Paul, "to know nothing but Christ crucified", to walk on the Way (as we are called to) or else we will surely sink. You have given me much to ponder. God bless you, Stuart.
Wonderful meditation, Stuart. I am especially struck by this idea of Christ as recipient of all experience. As you rightly stress, everything hinges upon integrating this reality and *live* according to it, not just give intellectual assent to it (as I do). But reflecting on why it is that I cannot *see* this reality, I was reminded of Matthew 6:22. Could we say that (and sorry if it belabors the point) only one whose eye is *simple* (as Christ's is) can see the good in what is ugly and gaze in love upon one's enemy?
Thank you, Jean-Michel. I think we're seeing the same thing: Yes.
If we focus on the world of plurality, we are like St. Peter whose attention falls into the tumultous waves of existence. But if we keep our attention fixed on Christ, we walk on water. If our attention is divided between "this and that" -- between what feels good and what feels bad subjectively -- we are drowning in the ocean of transience.
To see one's enemy only as an image (however distorted it may be!) of God and to love that because it's better than anything else -- I think that's the key. Now, someone may be seriously distorted -- as through a hall of mirrors dimly -- but to be able to see their reality in spite of what contorts their image. Only if the heart of my attention is not divided, but rather focused on one single object (which cannot be a transient object or my attention is immediately directed towards "keeping" that object) -- only then can I really love my neighbor as myself. In such a space, sin is only "seen" as a distortion of the lovely image in front of us, but we still love the image we can intuit even if the person in front of us can't fully embody it at the moment.
I see the crucifixion as the germinal point of creation (not Genesis) and the substrate on which all fluctating secondary existence hangs. The rising and falling of tides, the waxing and waning of the moon, the scorching of the earth in summer to the winter snows: this is all Christ crucified. It is the Son whose eternal crucifixion is never over as long as this world exists. Our existences hangs on Him. If we really could feel that, we would weep at every minor injustice we inflict on anyone, because anything Christ experiences (as eternal consciousness experiencing time) is always and forever experienced in the first person subjective. That means the cross, yes, and the resurrection. But it also means everything we ever do to anyone is forever experienced by Christ subjectively. The price of existence is a more enormous cost than is even thinkable. We are fortunate: we can forget what came before, while Christ cannot. We get to be washed in the blood of the lamb, but the lamb is something else. He stands "as slain" on the throne. But if we are grafted branches, if the rootstock ever stopped bleeding, the scions would perish. This is the cost of eternal life. It's enough to make my hands shake typing and to make my knees weak.
HOLY! HOLY! HOLY!
Amen! Amen, brother! Whenever I meditate on the Mystery of the Passion, I am almost always struck dumb, for it gathers All Things. I often drown even as I pray, like Peter in the waters of multiplicity, while I should only attend to Christ and contemplate Him. But that is another matter.
Yes, the Cross is the fulcrum upon which everything turns : stat crux dum volvitur orbis. Yet I had never seen before how the embrace of the Cross indeed seems to resolve the problem of the One and the Many (among other vexing philosophical aporia). How could it be otherwise? All things then, can be known, seen, experienced through the Cross. So then must we all decide, like Paul, "to know nothing but Christ crucified", to walk on the Way (as we are called to) or else we will surely sink. You have given me much to ponder. God bless you, Stuart.