Tag Archives: paradox

What’s It Like I

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Questions are…more important than answers

Good questions make better answers…than good answers make.

Why would I say this; because our minds armed with reason, logic and hopefully some intelligence struggles forward, forever marching forward to find an answer? Finding a definitive answer in an infinite universe; good luck with that. With this in mind, let’s admit even the best of answers needs some qualification. If we listen closely to what’s being said, isn’t there a “both this and this also” added or implied to each answer. As resolute as it might sound in the beginning, I believe we look for something more. I offer you this, as complete as the answer may be, as firm as the ground may seem to be, we don’t bask in the glory of the answer like a tourist on the beach. Even the finest “ah ha” moments are short lived…..We quickly move our sight to the next horizon. Our new found revelation becomes another stone in our neatly laid road, another brick on the wall, another freshly packed pigeon hole.

So be honest, isn’t asking “what and how” a lot more exciting than putting the last piece of the puzzle together. Don’t we want “uncertainty” to have a calming effect on us rather than an unsettling one? Isn’t “I’m not sure” and “I don’t know” more engaging than the answers we are standing on? Doesn’t life remind us that the journey is more important than the destination? Isn’t the answer a far gone conclusion? Isn’t the Lord leading us all to heaven; isn’t the answer, we don’t know how He will get us there, but we are going with Him anyway.

Fear and Joy in the Lord

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For me, the biblical view is paradoxical out of necessity. Not because it is blatantly contradictory, which it is sometimes, but more to the point it brings many meanings to mind, great and small, penetrating and at times whimsical. Ask yourself, how could the truth be understood? It is obvious and self evident because it is the truth.

The truth appeals to everyone’s best intentions, highest ideals, and is the most sought after goal. The truth speaks to every aspect of the human experience regardless of the human experience. Jesus taught in parables, poets and song writers in metaphors and analogies, leaving the truth hidden in the inspiration of the moment. If its true and it is, God uses our unique life histories to bring us close to Him, then the truth must be draw on the experiences broader than our own; again the delightful web of paradox.

 

For me this paradox is found in the moment a soldier realizes all the things in life which are worth dying for are all the same things in life which are worth living for. Understanding our intent is not to redefine the words, but to refine the knowledge. Yet the biblical lens demands a distinctive portal and a focused vision. So God doesn’t help the ones who need the most hope; God hopes the ones who need the most help, for God’s hope is for sure and for certain. We don’t struggle with belief and unbelief; we are conflicted between belief and obedience. The world is not divided between good and evil, evil is the absence of good not the opposite of it. Can it be, we seek God until He finds us? God’s grace and unconditional love has been given to us without measure, yet in the moment of self realization we simultaneously receive and accept His gifts. Every one believes in the Lord, the question becomes do you trust in the Lord.

 

My brothers and sisters in Christ, you have spoken to my heart and now I will speak from my heart. There is no greater joy in this world than the fear of the Lord. From the Old Testament witnesses to the Holy Twelve who followed Jesus in fear and awe; all who glimpsed His majesty trembled in fear and cried for joy. To experience the presence of His power, to know in that moment the splendor of His creation, to realize our place in His design is as fearful as it is joyous; a joy which began before time, is now and will forever be. The mighty hand of the Lord lifts us as it stretches out over us. The cosmos exploded from His law into the laws of physics and we were there. He made us as His creation, in His creation and we were there. We were made to yield to His power and to be His power.

you can’t take it with you

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I’m sure there was a time, more than one, when common knowledge was something other than the current musing’s of the pop culture. Hard to say when these times were or how long they might have lasted. I say this not so much for the lies we were told, more for the sayings we generally accepted as the way things are. One of these is, you can’t take it with you. Nothing could be farther from the way it really is.

God’s grace, goodness and gifts are ours for all eternity.

The Hour Glass

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The turmoil, troubles and falling away which the Catholic Church has experienced in recent years maybe solved by making the past the path into the future. Through the rediscovery of our perfected precepts, the Body of Christ through our Catholic Faith and our continuing conversion of the heart will recreate the cornerstone and construct Jesus’ Church. As it was, as the Holy Spirit makes it and as it will be.  Through right thinking, evangelization flows naturally from one idea to the next.  Solutions found by reestablishing the harmony in the “Form and Content” of our Church. What does this mean?

Take the hour glass, unmistakable in its form, design and purpose. It’s immediately recognizable; in its symmetry, its functionality and in its simplicity, no other structure is like it, no other structure can take its place. It is the Form. It is the way that it is, because it is the only way it can be. This is the Church.

The sand; each grain is exquisitely unique.  Distinctively faceted, a shade apart from the rest, fashioned by God and honed by nature. This is the Content. Bathed in paradox, because the only element they truly share is that each is different. Yet taken in their entirety, each is uniform, locked in perfect harmony with the rest. This is the Body.

We realize the Form can not be changed, rearranged or altered in any way. And nothing can be added or taken away from the content. Not even the most beautiful diamond among the sand, for nothing else belongs there. There can be no substitutes; there are no equivalents, for only a genuine and measured amount will work.

Simply put, the “Hour Glass” provides the best example of the Catholic Church. Without the Form the Content fulfills no purpose.  Without the Content the Form has no function.