Re: More on contemplation of death

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: : : Well i couldn't agree more that I am an argument unto myself, and a complete contradiction in my own mind, perhaps my greatest struggle and source of many of my own peculiarities and shortcomings. I would absolutley LOVE to unify my thoughts and actions and cease living dually, however I am unable to do it as much as I want to. and despite all the encouragement and pounding of others, this is one of those things that must be changed internally. Of course I feel confident that God can change it in me if I could let it go, but I can't do that either yet. I pray that in time I can be brought to the point of release. : : : And then I am confused about one thing, what specifically did you mean by "the greatest...freedom from this delusion..." : : : : I will elaborate more later, so I will pursue brevity here and answer subjectively: : : The embracing of my mortality and eventual death has been for me the greatest freedom I have ever known. It has given me (God has given me through it) a prophetic wisdom and a spiritual power that has changed my whole life. (If this sounds less than humble, forgive me--I can't think how to put this tactfully yet precisely, and I trust you know I am not conceited.) This gift, or revelation, or grace, (is there a word?) has not reduced my ability nor my motivation to be productive in the temporal, but has allowed me to see glorious glimpses of that which is within the veil; to recognize the essence of my life as existing in another more eternal realm, whatever manifestation of life I must embrace here as reality. More on this later... : : : : : And finally, I understand what you mean that you have lived that way for years, but I think we are looking at two different perspectives. So for clarification, from my perspective if I was literally going to die tomorrow I would absolutely abandon (both internally and physically) all of the needless frustration placed on me by this world and cease to prepare for any occurance in the future. I would spend the time settling my loved ones and preparing my heart for eternity. : : : : Actually, my response to dying tomorrow may be very similar to yours, but contemplation of death does not mean the assurance I will die tomorrow. Both the rational and the spiritual responses to contemplation of death (as I am speaking of it) are contrary: : : (1) On the rational level, the contemplation of one's death and the acknowledging that it MIGHT be today or tomorrow does not cause a rational being to take that real statistical chance and treat it as if it were the only possibility. This is a kind of insanity, where a person focuses on either the most or least desirable outcome of a thing and makes it their whole reality. If a person does this, it is not the philosophy that is flawed, but the person's response to it. : : (2) On the spiritual level, the Spirit in us does not lead those He inhabits to respond to the contemplation of the reality of their demise by "dropping out" of life, nor ceasing to fulfil responsibilities necessary to providing temporal needs. Again, the irrational response that would cause people to sell all they own and sit on a mountain in white sheets waiting for the trumpet of God and the rapture is not led by the Spirit of God (as you will quickly agree). : : : : : While I can't speak to your internal state, I do know that on some levels you are forced to succumb to the world, you do have to make enough money to eat and pay your bills, you do have to maintain some semblance of credit in order to posess your house and electricity account. You do have to consider insurance for future medical expenses, etc. While it is possible to trust God for these things, few of us completely abandon all preparation for the future and expect God to miraculously make it all go away. To do so would create the downward spiral I spoke of. In fact you yourself told me in past conversations that you knew people who did leave everything and strike out on the road homeless, only to eventually return and try to pick up a life again, after not finding what they sought and realizing that it was a more spiritual type of abandonment than physical. I don't know if you remember, but you did say this. : : : : The abandoning of all preparation for the future is not the freedom I speak of. It is true that the pressures of this kind (future provision, etc.) often are the bars of the cage that holds us in and keeps us out, as it were. This I believe you know well. But it is not the removal of the responsibilities nor the refusal to serve them in a practical sense that is the freedom. It is the ability to fulfil the temporal needs (with the physical/mental faculties necessary) while living and enjoying real and eternal life now--today--and seeing the true priorities of eternal life elevated above those urgencies of the temporal life. It is knowing absence of fear while standing at the doorway to the eternal realm (death is the doorway) and being most overjoyed to be able to live there in spirit. It is to be "in tune" with the rhythm of the eternal song that resounds in our spirits; it is to commune in the heart of the Creator and know his imminent Presence--yet in full knowledge of his transcendent infinitude! It is not necessary to "strike out on the road homeless" (good example) to know freedom, or to know God's anointing and power, or to escape the burden of fulfilling the temporal necessities. I speak of escaping the 'burden' of the grind, not the grind itself. The burden of the grind is the meaninglessness, the endlessness, the forced preoccupation that blinds us to the true wonder of life and the beauty of those around us, and the all-too-universal predisposition to assume that God cannot dwell (be realized) in our menial routine in any real glory. : : The Buddhists have much to teach us about finding meaning in the menial, accomplished through a radical separation from the priorities of the world (the civilization we have crafted), and to be successful in this endeavor usually embodies a great degree of physical separation from society as well. But we also have much to teach them about finding meaning in the love of a personal God.*** You know how deeply I lament the way our ethnocentric and graceless perversions of the Gospel have rendered Yahshua Messiah irrelevant to them. : : The Buddhist's freedom is in a philosophy of life that becomes a fashion of living; that requires a finite aligning of one's whole temporal existence to the model. This you understand, and to some degree you tend to look at the philosophy we are now discussing in this essentially Buddhist sort of way: How can I possibly align my life with this? Hence the duality you mentioned earlier becomes a stumblingblock. It must become your glory. The eternal does not overcome the temporal reality in actuality--not yet--I am embracing the transformation which is at the door, and yet I am continuing in the temporal, ceasing to despise it, and finding joy and meaning in it I never knew before BECAUSE of the recognition of that which is greater and will outlast and replace it. : : : : ***Our glory is in our true identity, our eternal destiny as purposed and spoken immutably by the infinite, sovereign and personal Deity in whom all things exist, and in whom all beings have truest value because of his pleasure in them. To lose one's self in him is really to find one's self in him (true self). The laying down of our life--our whole identity as we know it--is the doorway to the revelation. For me, the knowledge of Him and of the glorious being I am in him, of the honorable place I occupy in HIS eternal purpose is able to set me free from every way my temporary situation seeks to define me. (It is more hopeful to be a prince temporarily scrubbing a floor, than to be a floor-scrubber.) : : This reality cannot come but through the contemplation of one's death and the joyous embracing of it. Many Christians have learned a lot of pseudo-contemplative philosophy by rote and can regurgitate it at will. But too rare is the person who has felt their life slip away and found peace in the dying and the utter loss of it all, suddenly reawakened in the throes of holy and terrifying love, been called by name by the One dwelling in light they cannot approach, and risen a glorious eternal creature... : : ...to find they are yet living in the temporal world a little while longer. : : To such a one the contemplation of death is not a philosophy, but the anchor of their whole existence in this life. : : With eyes turned outward, these persons can also see others' true beauty; see glimpses of creatures far more glorious than what they appear to be in this life; see the image of God in them. When such persons speak the wonders they have glimpsed, they heal people, they raise them to new life. They can do this because they have died. I long to be one of these. I have flirted with such power on many occassions, yet I am woefully inconsistent. : : : : Wow... look where I have gone with this... I must stop now and consult a map to find out where I am, and how I can find Kansas again. : I actually agree with everything you said...at least for the most part without disecting comments that could be misconstrued. Which I think is where I really took exception with Bob's post. I went back and looked at what he wrote and once more what jumped out at me is the question he used to illustrate contemplating death. I think the question, "if I would die tomorrow, what would I do today" is so cleche and full of bad movies that strive at real meaning that it is hard for me to percieve the question in any other light. I would not have cued at the post otherwise. Interesting how our brains trigger. I think it is my constant watchhound aganinst the easy-pseudo answer, or as you called it, "pseudo-contemplative philosophy learned by rote". I in no way think Bob was meaning to advance such a philosophy, but I hate to let those things go because many people would read it and say, "oh yeah, I know what he means" without ever thinking through it for real. Of course this is only something i would point out in the context of a discussion like this, and then only to someone who I know didn't really beleive it in the first place. I have learned that little good comes from trying to make such a subtle point to those who truly do think they have made a deep insight because often these people are just embarking on a philosophical quest and it does no good to dash them on the rocks right out of the port, to extend the metaphor. : All in all, I agree and I think bob is quite intelligent enough to carry on such a debate. But you're right, contemplating death in the correct fashion leads to a deep understanding that can't be rivaled. I think of the poem Dark Night of the Soul by Saint John of the Cross. This is one of the most beautiful representations of this type of contemplation. Incidently Lorena McKennet adapted it to song in the most beautiful rendering. And she's a pagan. She says in the liner notes that she found real Truth and passion in the deep love the writer expresses for his God.

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