Here be dragons. And doves. Human beings long for transcendence. Such longing is, for the world, always out of fashion because, of course, it is not a longing for the world, and the world knows it. We know what the world wants. The world—by which we mean Satan, the Lord of the World—wants above all our obedience, a jewel so precious that he will do anything to get it: lie, steal, murder, bear false witness, pretend to social standing, pretend to insider knowledge to get us to consent to his influence. “God lied to you. You will not die.” And suddenly we are anxious about having other people dislike us, about losing prestige in our social circles, about other people being more popular or influential or successful, about other people having secret knowledge, about our own influence and fame. “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And with that temptation, our first parents fell. The irony is cosmic. There they were in the Garden, privy to conversation with God face-to-face, and
Good Morning, Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI started reading your blog a few days ago when I was doing a google search for "fencing and the spirit." I started a fencing class at College of Lake County last week and I think I'm hooked :) I've been reading your blog from the very beginning...feel like I'm supposed to for some reason...and enjoying it very much! Thank you for sharing your thoughts on fencing and much more! Have a great day...maybe the rainy Chicago weather will be a good day for writing??
Jean :)
Welcome, Jean! I am so happy that you have been enjoying reading my blog! And welcome to fencing, it is an amazing (and potentially obsessive) sport! Most of my posts on fencing as such, as opposed to tournaments, are in the first couple of years of the blog archive, but it all fits together--fencing, writing, dealing with clutter--in learning to pray, or so I have found.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the good wishes for today's writing--it does look like a good day for prose!