No more SK, I promise. There is, however, more about the Pilgrims…

January 5th 

I proclaimed a fast by the Ahava River, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask Him for a safe journey for us, our children, and all our possessions. I did this because I was ashamed to ask the king for infantry and cavalry to protect us from enemies during the journey, since we had told him, “The hand of our God is gracious to all who seek Him, but His great anger is against all who abandon Him.” So we fasted and pleaded with our God about this, and He granted our request.

Ezra 8:21-23 (HCSB)

…in the wholesome counsel Mr. Robinson gave… at their departure from him to begin the great work of [Plymouth] Plantation in New England, amongst other wholesome instructions and exhortations, he used these expressions, or to the same purpose:

We are now before long to part… and the Lord knows whether he should live to see our faces again: but whether the Lord had appointed it or not, he charged us before God and his blessed angels, to follow him no further then he followed Christ. And if God should reveal anything to us by any other instrument of his, to be as ready to receive it, as we ever were to receive any truth by his ministry; for he was very confident the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy Word.

….Here also he put us in mind of our Church-Covenant, where we promise and covenant with God and one with another, to receive whatsoever light or truth shall be made known to us from his written Word: but exhorted us to take heed what we received for truth, and to examine and compare, and weigh it with other Scriptures of truth, before we received it.

‘Another thing he [re]commended to us, was, that we should use all means to avoid and shake off the name of Brownist, being a mere nickname and brand to make religion odious, and the professors of it [odious] to the Christian world; and to that end, said he, I should be glad if some godly minister would go over with you, or come to you, before my coming. For, said he, there will be no difference between the Nonconformist ministers and you, when they come to the practice of the ordinances of the Kingdom; and so advised us by all means… rather to study union then division; viz. how near we might possibly, without sin, close with them, then in the least measure to affect division or separation from them.

“Many other things there were of great and weighty consequence which he commended to us, but these things I thought good to relate, at the request of some well-willers to the peace and good agreement of the godly, (so distracted at present about the settling of Church-government in the Kingdom of England) that so both sides may truly see what this poor despised Church of Christ now at New-Plymouth in New-England, but formerly at Leyden in Holland, was and is; how far they were and still are from separation from the Churches of Christ, especially those that are Reformed.”

Edward Winslow

 

Now I’m just being evil…

January 4th

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

Revelation 22:13-14, 17 (NIV)

It is true that the temporal order has its time; but the Eternal shall always have time. If this should not happen within a man’s life, then the Eternal comes again under another name, and once again shall always have time. This is repentance. Confession is a holy act, which calls for a collected mind. A collected mind is a mind that has collected itself from every distraction, from every relation, in order to center itself upon this relation to itself as an individual who is responsible to God. It is a mind that has collected itself from every distraction, and therefore also from all comparison. For comparison may either tempt a man to an earthly and fortuitous despondency because the one who compares must admit to himself that he is behind many others, or it may tempt him to pride because, humanly speaking, he seems to be ahead of many others.

Father in Heaven! What is a man without Thee! What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know Thee! What is all his striving, could it even encompass the world, but a half-finished work if he does not know Thee: Thee the One, who art one thing and who art all! So may Thou give to the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing; to the heart, sincerity to receive this understanding; to the will, purity that wills only one thing. In prosperity may Thou grant perseverance to will one thing; amid distractions, collectedness to will one thing; in suffering, patience to will one thing. Oh, Thou that giveth both the beginning and the completion, may Thou early, at the dawn of day, give to the young man the resolution to will one thing. As the day wanes, may Thou give to the old man a renewed remembrance of his first resolution, that the first may be like the last, the last like the first, in possession of a life that has willed only one thing. Alas, but this has indeed not come to pass. Something has come in between. The separation of sin lies in between. Each day, and day after day something is being placed in between: delay, blockage, interruption, delusion, corruption. So in this time of repentance may Thou give the courage once again to will one thing. True, it is an interruption of our daily tasks; we do lay down our work as though it were a day of rest, when the penitent (and it is only in a time of repentance that the heavy-laden worker may be quiet in the confession of sin) is alone before Thee. This is indeed an interruption. But it is an interruption that searches back into its very beginnings that it might bind up anew that which sin has separated, that in its grief it might atone for lost time, that in its anxiety it might bring to completion that which lies beforeit. Oh, Thou that givest both the beginning and the completion, give Thou victory in the day of need so that what neither a man’s burning wish nor his determined resolution may attain to, may be granted unto him in the sorrowing of repentance: to will only one thing.

from Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (Ch. 15)

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The good news is that since this is the last (daily) post, you will not be seeing any more Kierkegaard. The bad news is…. actually I don’t have any bad news. Sorry?

The narrow way

January 3rd 

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Matthew 7:12-14 (NIV)

In eternity, the individual, yes, you, my listener, and I as individuals will each be asked solely about himself as an individual, and about the individual details in his life. If in this talk I have spoken poorly, then you will not be asked about that, my listener; nor will any man from whom I may have learned. For if he has stated it falsely, then he will be questioned about that and I will be made to answer for having learned from another what was false.

If it should so happen that in this talk I have spoken the truth, then I shall be questioned no further about this matter. There will be no questioning as to whether I have won men (quite on the contrary, it might well be asked whether I had any notion of having by my own efforts done the least thing toward winning them)… No, eternity will release me from one and all of such foolish questions. In the world of time a man can be confused, for he does not know which is which: which question is the serious one and which the silly one, especially since the silly one is heard a thousand times to the serious question’s once. Eternity, on the other hand, can admirably distinguish between them; yet it is obvious that the thing does not become easier on that account.

…But when all comparison is relinquished forever then a man confesses as an individual before God — and he is outside any comparison, just as the demand which purity of heart lays upon him is outside of comparison. Purity of heart is what God requires of him and the penitent demands it of himself before God. Yes, it is just on this account that he confesses his sins. And heavy as the way and the hour of the confession may be, yet the penitent wins the Eternal. He is strengthened in the consciousness that he is an individual, and in the task of truthfully willing only one thing. This consciousness is the strait gate sand the narrow way. For it is not this narrow way that the many take, following one after another. No, this straitness means rather that each must himself become an individual, that through this needle’s eyes he must press forward to the narrow way where no comparison cools, but yet where no comparison kills…

from Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (Ch. 15)

…and more Kierkegaard, because I am a lying liar who lies

January 2nd

Now the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith.

 1 Timothy 1:5 (HCSB)

The talk asks you, then, or you ask yourself by means of the talk, what kind of life do you live, do you will only one thing, and what is this one thing? The talk does not expect that you will name off any goal that only pretends to be one thing. For it does not intend to address itself to anyone with whom it would not be able to deal seriously, for the reason that such a man has cut himself off from any earnest consideration… a man can, to be sure, have an extremely different, yes, have a precisely opposite opinion from ours, and one can nevertheless deal earnestly with him if one assumes that finally there may be a point of agreement, a unity in some universal human sense, call it what you will.  …One can dispute with a man, dispute to the furthest limit, as long as one assumes, that in the end there is a point in common, an agreement in some universal human sense: in self-respect. But when, in his worldly strivings he sets out like a madman in a desperate attempt to despise himself,  and congratulates himself for his infamy, then one can undertake no disputing with him.

The talk assumes, then, that you will the Good and asks you now, what kind of life you live, whether or not you truthfully will only one thing. It does not ask inquisitively about your calling in life, about the number of workers you employ, or about how many you have under you in your office, or if you happen to be in the service of the state. It asks you above all else, it asks you first and foremost, whether you really live in such a way that you are capable of answering that question, in such a way that the question truthfully exists for you. Because in order to be able earnestly to answer that serious question, a man must already have made a choice in life, he must have chosen the invisible, chosen that which is within. He must have lived so that he has hours and times in which he collects his mind, so that his life can win the transparency that is a condition for being able to put the question to himself and for being able to answer it. To put such a question to the man that is so busy in his earthly work, and outside of this in joining the crowd in its noisemaking, would be folly that would lead only to fresh folly —through the answer.

from Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (Ch. 12)

‘…to all men of good will’

January 1st – 7th day of Christmas 

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Galatians 5:13-14 (NIV)

It is always perfectly justifiable to distinguish between error as such and the person who falls into error—even in the case of men who err regarding the truth or are led astray as a result of their inadequate knowledge, in matters either of religion or of the highest ethical standards. A man who has fallen into error does not cease to be a man. …Besides, there exists in man’s very nature an undying capacity to break through the barriers of error and seek the road to truth. God, in His great providence, is ever present with His aid. Today, maybe, a man lacks faith and turns aside into error; tomorrow, perhaps, illumined by God’s light, he may indeed embrace the truth.

…Let us, then, pray with all fervor for this peace which our divine Redeemer came to bring us. May He banish from the souls of men whatever might endanger peace. May He transform all men into witnesses of truth, justice and brotherly love. May He illumine with His light the minds of rulers, so that, besides caring for the proper material welfare of their peoples, they may also guarantee them the fairest gift of peace.

Finally, may Christ inflame the desires of all men to break through the barriers which divide them, to strengthen the bonds of mutual love, to learn to understand one another, and to pardon those who have done them wrong. Through His power and inspiration may all peoples welcome each other to their hearts as brothers, and may the peace they long for ever flower and ever reign among them.

from Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris

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More popes today, because it’s apparently World Peace Day (for Catholics at least), and the theme of politically explosive encyclicals amuses me. (Pacem in Terris, was addressed to ‘all men of good will’ in addition to members of the Catholic Church.) Also, for those of us that get all the popes mixed up: Pope John XXIII was the one responsible for the Second Vatican Council, which pissed a lot of people off for some reason. Pope John Paul II was the cool pope who skied. And no one cares about the two in between because they were boring (more or less).

…and I’m a terrible person, because all I could think of throughout writing this entire thing was Miss Congeniality.

I am wrapping this blog up, but I missed a post or two last(!) year, and I wanted to finish the twelve days of Christmas, mostly because I think they’re cute.  I may start something new, but if I do, it will be elsewhere, because I put this on a blog for my own sanity, to have a self-contained indexed, tagged, shareable archive. But thank you anyway, all you weirdos who have actually read this thing, I’m sure you’re the nicest three people on the planet. I’m sure I could have gotten an extra three people to read it if I’d done anything in the way of promotion, but, see above. ☝

[Edit: I started on with the pope posts before whatshisface started issuing papal bulls about cell phones, but I refuse to go back and change things just so that I look original.]

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Anyway, have a very happy New Year! Enjoy the new things, appreciate the old things, and thank God for both.

 

Caring for the Church

December 31st 

…apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern?

2 Corinthians 11:28-29 (NASB)

And it will be said in that day, “Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the LORD for whom we have waited; Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”

Isaiah 25:9 (NASB)

They that trust in the Lord shall never be confounded! Some who helped for a while may fall asleep in Jesus; others may grow cold in the service of the Lord; others may be as desirous as ever to help, but have no longer the means; others may have both a willing heart to help, and have also the means, but may see it the Lord’s will to lay them out in another way;—and thus, from one cause or another, were we to lean upon man, we should surely be confounded; but, in leaning upon the living God alone, We are BEYOND disappointment, and BEYOND being forsaken because of death, or want[lack] of means, or want of love, or because of the claims of other work. How precious to have learned in any measure to stand with God alone in the world, and yet to be happy, and to know that surely no good thing shall be withheld from us whilst we walk uprightly!

…language cannot express the real joy in God which I had. I was free from excitement. The circumstance did not un-fit me even for a single moment to attend to my other engagements. I was not in the least surprised, because, by grace, my soul had been waiting on God for deliverance. Never had help been so long delayed.

…Our desire, therefore, is not that we may be without trials of faith, but that the Lord graciously would be pleased to support us in the trial, that we may not dishonour Him by distrust.

from George Müller’s Narrative (Pt. 2)

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Today is, apparently, the Feast of the mysterious St. Slyvester, whom we don’t know much of anything about, other than the fact that he was pope during the time of Constantine, and stories about the two of them were used as a sort of totem whenever anyone wanted some propaganda that asserted papal supremacy.  And he was absent from the only event from this period of church history that anyone remembers and simply sent representatives to the Council of Nicaea.  And he’s also associated with a super-famous forgery.

But basically nothing.

Being taught by God

December 30th 

But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, so you don’t need anyone to teach you what is true.* For the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true—it is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ.

1 John 2:27 (NLT)

All things are clear and open in the divine scriptures; all things that are necessary are plain.

…Tell me, with what pomp of words did Paul speak? and yet he converted the world. Or with what the unlettered Peter? ‘But I don’t know,’ you say, ‘the things that are contained in the divine scriptures.’ Why? are they spoken in Hebrew? are they in Latin, or in foreign tongues? ‘But they are expressed obscurely,’ you say. What is it that is obscure? Are there not histories? For (of course) you know the obvious parts since you inquire about the obscure. There are numberless histories in the scriptures.

Tell me one of these. But you cannot. These things are an excuse, and mere words. Every day, you say, one hears the same things. Tell me, then, do you not hear the same things in the theatres? are not all things the same? is it not the same sun that rises? is it not the same food that we use? I should like to ask you, since you say that you every day hear the same things; tell me, from what Prophet was the passage that was read? from what Apostle, or what Epistle? But you cannot tell me.

When you want to be lazy, you say that they are the same old thing. But when you are questioned, you are in the case of one who never heard them. If they are all the same, you ought to know them.

from John Chrysostom’s Homily 3

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*Obviously, since the epistle was written by John the Evangelist there’s a bit of ‘Speak to a fool in his folly…. don’t speak to a fool in his folly’ going on. There’s clearly a place for teaching, encouragement, exhortation etc., the problem is when you rely on other people so that you don’t listen to the Holy Spirit for yourself, which is more what Chrysostom was talking about here.

Probably the last Kierkegaard post, so enjoy it

December 29th 

…you say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

Matthew 23:30 (NASB)

A living generation often believes itself able to pass judgment on a past generation, because it misunderstood the Good… At some later date, it is no art to decorate the graves of the noble and to say, “If they had only lived now,” now — just as we are starting in to do the same thing against a contemporary.

The view of the moment is the opinion which in an earthly and ‘busy’ sense decides whether a man accomplishes anything or not. And in this sense, nothing in the world has ever been so completely lost as was Christianity at the time that Christ was crucified. And in the understanding of the moment, never in the world has anyone accomplished so little by the sacrifice of a consecrated life as did Jesus Christ. And yet in this same instant, eternally understood, He had accomplished all. For He did not foolishly judge by the result that was not yet there, or more rightly (for here is the conflict and battleground of the two interpretations of what is meant by “accomplishing”) the result was indeed there.

Question His contemporaries, if you ever meet them. Do they not say of the crucified one, “The fool, he would help others and he cannot help himself, but now the outcome also shows, so that everyone may see what he was.”

Was it not said by His contemporaries, especially where the clever led the conversation, “The fool, he who had it in his power to become king if he cared to make use of his opportunity, if he had only half my cleverness, he would have been king. In the beginning I really believed that it was ingenuity, that he let these people express themselves in this fashion without wishing to give himself up to them. I believed it was a trick. But now the result shows clearly enough what I more recently have myself been quite clear about, that he is a shallow, blind visionary!” Was it not said by many intelligent men and women, “The result shows that he has been hunting after phantasies; he should have married. In this way he would now have been a distinguished teacher in Israel.”

And yet, eternally understood, the crucified one had in the same moment accomplished all! But the view of the moment and the view of eternity over the same matter have never stood in such atrocious opposition. It can never be repeated. This could happen only to Him. Yet eternally understood, He had in the same moment accomplished all, and on that account said, with eternity’s wisdom, “It is finished.”

Perhaps it would require many centuries before He would be able to say that in regard to temporal existence. Yet what He is still unable to say after the passage of eighteen triumphant centuries, He said in His own age, eighteen centuries ago, in the very moment when all was lost. Eternally understood, He said, “It is finished.” “It is finished.” He said that just when the mass of the people, and the priests, and the Roman soldiers, Herod and Pilate, and the idle ones on the street, the crowd in the gateway, and the newspaper reporters (if there were any such at that time) in short, when all the powers of the moment, however different their sentiments might have been, were agreed upon this view of the matter: that all was lost, hopelessly lost. “It is finished,” He said, nailed to the cross as He was.

from Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing (Ch. 8)

Results of the Spirit

December 28th 

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5 (NIV)

 Whatever the soul may think fit to do itself, whatever care and pains it may take, relying only upon its own power, and thinking to be able to effect a perfect success by itself, without the co-operation of the Spirit, it is greatly mistaken. It is of no use for the heavenly places; it is of no use for the kingdom… Unless [it] will come to God, denying the world, and will believe with patience and hope to receive a good thing foreign to his own nature, namely the power of the Holy Ghost, and unless the Lord [gives] the life of the Godhead, such a [soul] will never experience true life, will never recover from the drunkenness of materialism; the enlightenment of the Spirit will never kindle in it a holy daytime; it will never… come to know God of a truth through God’s power and the efficacy of grace.

Unless a man is permitted thus through faith to receive grace, he is not qualified or adapted for the kingdom; but on the other hand, if he receives the grace of the Spirit, and does not at all change his mind, or despise grace by negligence or wrong-doing, and contends for some time without grieving the Spirit, he shall be enabled to obtain eternal life.

As one perceives the workings of evil by anger, by envy, by heaviness, by wicked thoughts and other wrong things, so ought one to perceive the grace and power of God by kindness, by goodness, by cheerfulness, by gaiety, by divine gladness, in order to be likened to and mingled with the good and divine nature, with the kind and holy workings of grace. When the will is gradually and progressively tested by time and opportunity, whether it is continually at one with grace and is found well-pleasing, it comes gradually to be altogether in the Spirit, and so being wrought by the Spirit to holiness and purity is made fit for the kingdom. Glory and worship to the undefiled Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost forever. Amen.

from (Pseudo-)Macarius’ Homily 24 

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Considering the day, here is Pentatonix’s version of the creepiest Christmas carol of all time, the Coventry Carol on Youtube and Spotify respectively.

On the third day of Christmas…

December 27th 

 The Jews who were there gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.

John 10:24-26 (NIV)

Jesus knew they [the disciples] wanted to question Him, so He said to them, “Are you asking one another about what I said, ‘A little while and you will not see Me; again a little while and you will see Me’?”

…”I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in My name. I am not telling you that I will make requests to the Father on your behalf. For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father. ”

John 16:19, 25-28 (HCSB)

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We’re covering John simply because the Catholics are obliging enough to have a bunch of Christmastide feast days, and this one happens to be his. On that subject, I can’t remember who I was talking with, but John (the disciple/apostle) came up, and we suddenly went: ‘Oh my god, one of the reasons John is the weird one is because he’s the only disciple that lived long enough to get that way.’

Here is First Call’s New Twelve Days of Christmas on Youtube and Spotify. And yeah, now I’m just being an ass, because I feel that it’s tremendously unfair that Jesus gets a birthday party that basically goes for twelve days. (Though I imagine the booze would probably be both free and quite good.) But anyway, it’s a cute song, right?

To continue our distinctive blend of aggressively non-intellectual piety and gratuitous bits of high culture: Here is Corregio’s The Vision of St. John on Patmos