Tara, beautiful essay as always. I read it twice, and I'm kind of slow, so I need to read it more times, but what you suggest seems to be here: "Those who know those truths are doomed to loneliness only if they so wish it. There is a holy task available to the most humble, the most bereaved, the most exhausted: simply to love and look." But this sounds like just the "cloister" side of the "Leviathan/cloister" dichotomy which I thought I heard you saying what a false one...and when you talk further of prayer, it sounds like a communion between us (as individuals) and the dead (who remember the past, but can't give it to us). It doesn't sound (probably, again, because I'm slow) like something that would help people who know so much truth they're lonely -- people who have been loving and looking, because that's all they can do -- become deeply integrated again with one another. In my own essays, I'm trying to understand -- slowly -- how, indeed, what became of Christian "prayer" actually helped get us into this very mess -- and what (truly radical, not just reactionary and nostalgic) we might do to recover a truly ecological, eschatological sense of prayer. One of my guiding questions is this quote from Philip Sherrard: "The Church and the Eucharist have lost their meaning as an integrating and creative focus of communal life. From being a 'common cause' they have become a means of individual salvation. The Christian’s own religiousness has become his chief preoccupation. And in this context the concept of the Christian’s responsibility for the fate of the world has inescapably lost all meaning."
The thoughts you share and questions you pose are worthy of the deepest reflection; if this is the fruit of slowness, then slowness is a gift. The quotation from Sherrard is not one I have heard but its content is one I have meditated on, as has the sort of "legalistic" offering & flattening of much church & liturgical prayer. My guesses as to what is happening, why, and the path forward are only guesses so I'm hesitant to share them in case they were taken as truth by a casual passer-by.
What I am more at peace with sharing is a sort of glimpse akin to Julian of Norwich's revelations, in which the word "behovely" crops up. Her interesting phrases and word choices, paired with the romantic Christianity of George MacDonald, have guided me to think we are in a loud drama surrounding, even attempting to cover, the still point of the Eucharist, the mystery of God's transubstantiation of matter. The mystery of the central Sacrament goes deeper than we dream, and in our adolescent turmoil we do not know how to relate to one another. Sort of how a toddler needs to become aware of the reality of others, becoming more individual and more socially-oriented at the same time, so too are we in need of both/and. To be more fully human, and thus to participate more fully in the Church which streams between worlds is the task; we ask our hearts (personal prayer) to navigate us towards the love of God (where True community lives), avoiding the perils of anarchic libertarianism and legalistic totalism on either hand. To take responsibility for the fate of the world is to recognize our participation in that war and to lay down our arms, participating as witnesses to the Crucifixion of God so that His Heart may renew the life of ourselves and the world.
I do not know if this answer is of any aid or clarification, my apologies if it muddles thing further. Thank you again for your thoughtful response and I'm glad to discuss further at any time; the biggest knots are the ones I find most in need of wrestling with.
OK, nearly a month later, I think I get this now, or have glimpsed it: "The mystery of the central Sacrament goes deeper than we dream, and in our adolescent turmoil we do not know how to relate to one another. Sort of how a toddler needs to become aware of the reality of others, becoming more individual and more socially-oriented at the same time, so too are we in need of both/and. To be more fully human, and thus to participate more fully in the Church which streams between worlds is the task; we ask our hearts (personal prayer) to navigate us towards the love of God (where True community lives)" -- yesterday, I shed tears in church, I was so together with everyone, though I wasn't face to face, and I wasn't talking, I was singing...
Wow, Tara: "The mystery of the central Sacrament goes deeper than we dream, and in our adolescent turmoil we do not know how to relate to one another. Sort of how a toddler needs to become aware of the reality of others, becoming more individual and more socially-oriented at the same time, so too are we in need of both/and. To be more fully human, and thus to participate more fully in the Church which streams between worlds is the task; we ask our hearts (personal prayer) to navigate us towards the love of God (where True community lives)" -- this...I have no words for this yet, which is why I simply quote it back, letting it reverberate some more. There is such depth here, and pushes through -- like a sudden gush of water in a tumbling canyon of rock -- places where I keep getting hung up.
The dreadful flattening and reduction of the beautiful mystery of existence by the critical theorists and nominalists into a hideously cartoonish simulacron is something which has always astounded and troubled me.....you express this so beautifully and powerfully......
Tara, beautiful essay as always. I read it twice, and I'm kind of slow, so I need to read it more times, but what you suggest seems to be here: "Those who know those truths are doomed to loneliness only if they so wish it. There is a holy task available to the most humble, the most bereaved, the most exhausted: simply to love and look." But this sounds like just the "cloister" side of the "Leviathan/cloister" dichotomy which I thought I heard you saying what a false one...and when you talk further of prayer, it sounds like a communion between us (as individuals) and the dead (who remember the past, but can't give it to us). It doesn't sound (probably, again, because I'm slow) like something that would help people who know so much truth they're lonely -- people who have been loving and looking, because that's all they can do -- become deeply integrated again with one another. In my own essays, I'm trying to understand -- slowly -- how, indeed, what became of Christian "prayer" actually helped get us into this very mess -- and what (truly radical, not just reactionary and nostalgic) we might do to recover a truly ecological, eschatological sense of prayer. One of my guiding questions is this quote from Philip Sherrard: "The Church and the Eucharist have lost their meaning as an integrating and creative focus of communal life. From being a 'common cause' they have become a means of individual salvation. The Christian’s own religiousness has become his chief preoccupation. And in this context the concept of the Christian’s responsibility for the fate of the world has inescapably lost all meaning."
The thoughts you share and questions you pose are worthy of the deepest reflection; if this is the fruit of slowness, then slowness is a gift. The quotation from Sherrard is not one I have heard but its content is one I have meditated on, as has the sort of "legalistic" offering & flattening of much church & liturgical prayer. My guesses as to what is happening, why, and the path forward are only guesses so I'm hesitant to share them in case they were taken as truth by a casual passer-by.
What I am more at peace with sharing is a sort of glimpse akin to Julian of Norwich's revelations, in which the word "behovely" crops up. Her interesting phrases and word choices, paired with the romantic Christianity of George MacDonald, have guided me to think we are in a loud drama surrounding, even attempting to cover, the still point of the Eucharist, the mystery of God's transubstantiation of matter. The mystery of the central Sacrament goes deeper than we dream, and in our adolescent turmoil we do not know how to relate to one another. Sort of how a toddler needs to become aware of the reality of others, becoming more individual and more socially-oriented at the same time, so too are we in need of both/and. To be more fully human, and thus to participate more fully in the Church which streams between worlds is the task; we ask our hearts (personal prayer) to navigate us towards the love of God (where True community lives), avoiding the perils of anarchic libertarianism and legalistic totalism on either hand. To take responsibility for the fate of the world is to recognize our participation in that war and to lay down our arms, participating as witnesses to the Crucifixion of God so that His Heart may renew the life of ourselves and the world.
I do not know if this answer is of any aid or clarification, my apologies if it muddles thing further. Thank you again for your thoughtful response and I'm glad to discuss further at any time; the biggest knots are the ones I find most in need of wrestling with.
OK, nearly a month later, I think I get this now, or have glimpsed it: "The mystery of the central Sacrament goes deeper than we dream, and in our adolescent turmoil we do not know how to relate to one another. Sort of how a toddler needs to become aware of the reality of others, becoming more individual and more socially-oriented at the same time, so too are we in need of both/and. To be more fully human, and thus to participate more fully in the Church which streams between worlds is the task; we ask our hearts (personal prayer) to navigate us towards the love of God (where True community lives)" -- yesterday, I shed tears in church, I was so together with everyone, though I wasn't face to face, and I wasn't talking, I was singing...
Wow, Tara: "The mystery of the central Sacrament goes deeper than we dream, and in our adolescent turmoil we do not know how to relate to one another. Sort of how a toddler needs to become aware of the reality of others, becoming more individual and more socially-oriented at the same time, so too are we in need of both/and. To be more fully human, and thus to participate more fully in the Church which streams between worlds is the task; we ask our hearts (personal prayer) to navigate us towards the love of God (where True community lives)" -- this...I have no words for this yet, which is why I simply quote it back, letting it reverberate some more. There is such depth here, and pushes through -- like a sudden gush of water in a tumbling canyon of rock -- places where I keep getting hung up.
Tara, Wow! You have articulated a great deal of what I’ve been feeling but could not name. Thank you.
The dreadful flattening and reduction of the beautiful mystery of existence by the critical theorists and nominalists into a hideously cartoonish simulacron is something which has always astounded and troubled me.....you express this so beautifully and powerfully......
It troubles me too. Pulling the veil it has cast over our eyes and hearts seems to be a task all of goodwill should unite in...