First Stone. It Is Not Enough To Do What Is Right...

It is said - probably apocryphally - that Martin Luther tore The Epistle of James from his bible when he could not reconcile the presumed primacy of sola fide with James' observation that "Faith without works is dead."

Sola Fide

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide

Dear Fred,

Thanks for your email.

Dickens is great. Thanks for the glimpse of Pickwick.

I just got back to Cancun after 72 hours of extreme time dilation --- feels like I´ve been in Mexico for weeks.

I don´t have much time to write from this ciber-cafe -- only the second time I´ve been online since April 29.

I like your family reflections.

I admire the courage of your uncle Chuck declaring that nothing is beyond our imagination.

I think Earth is at a critical juncture: either we shit our pants and destroy everything (for no purpose more lofty that avoiding awe-full, awful encounter with the co-creative Cosmos), or we're born into a New Heaven and a New Earth.

At least that´s what my imagination tells me.

I've spent recent bus time reading half a dozen America magazines (the U.S. Jesuit weekly) which my sister kindly brings me when she visits NC at Easter and Thanksgiving.

The Jesuits are cool. 

Since Francis' "Jesuit" papacy began, expressions of interest in Jesuit vocations are up 10 fold.

It gladdens me that Pope Francis understands the need to get beyond hidebound religiosity, and does so by putting service -- especially service to poor people -- first.

"Pope Francis Links"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/11/pope-francis-links.html

Pass the service ¨test¨ and then there can be a discussion of rules, regulations and exactly why God hates all the same people I do.

"Best Thing Ever Said By A Jesuit"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/tom-weston-best-thing-ever-said-by.html

But it´s also true that when "you" pass that service ¨test,¨ you probably won´t want to have the discussion about which rules justify "my" projection malice -- a logorheic exercise rather like talking about making love than making it. 

First Stone

It is not enough to do what it is right. 

We must do what is right, rightly.

There's the rub.

A couple days ago it occurred to me that the primary purpose of judgment is to avoid actual commitment to people who are not as good as I am.

Plus, there is the extraordinary benefit of built-in self-exculpation which is so self-forgiving that our "right" -- indeed, our "obligation" -- to judge our "inferiors" is rendered unassailable.

Fr. Thomas Merton Explains -- In 16 Words -- Why "Christian" "Conservatives" Are Always Wrong

https://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2020/04/fr-thomas-merton-explains-in-16-words.html

Where did "we" get our cultural bias that literalists and rule-followers automatically deserve deference.

I cannot count the times I've endured the pontifications of these prissy, pissy people while taking care not to "provoke" them with any intelligent/soulful view that might shatter their brittle psychic equilibrium like a bullet through glass.

To paraphrase Cockburn: "Some people only see the light when it comes through bullet holes."

"Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/08/yeshua-excoriates-fellow-pharisees-woe.html

If God can be "known" by any human metaphor... ¨"He's" an artist, not a bean counter.

Poetic license - like Mercy - prevails.

Always and everywhere.

"The subjective" and "the objective" are complements that co-exist, co-emerge and co-create.

Absolute deference to "the objective" is an act of self-amputation that clips our wings, simultaneously submitting God to Procrustes' bed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes 

Notice that Procrustes always begins with what seems to be a generous invitation, rather like the "fundamentalist" promise of salvation.

Pax tecum

Alan

On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 3:35 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm still reading Dickens. His first big seller is the Pickwick Papers and it's funny. You don't expect to laugh at a joke written in 1836, but it's still funny.

I don't read any contemporary authors unless they read me. That seems so reasonable -- like a friendly exchange of words.

I don't read Garcia Marquez, not any more. I did read Love in the time of Cholera back when I lived in Boston, like 20 years ago. It was quite a good book.....

But he doesn't know me. How can I know him if he doesn't know me?

I got a letter on Friday from my cousin Kathleen. It was thrilling -- to get a real honest to God letter in the mailbox. And I will write back to her  -- an exchange of words!

I have not heard from Kathleen since my mother died in 1996. My folks in the Midwest, including Kathleen, are more conservative -- they go to church and join the Marines and have lots of children. Kathleen has nine children -- everybody says she's good at it..... Her nine children are all grown and I won't even ask about  grandchildren. She's 75

She lives in -- forty years now -- Ashland, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior -- which is STILL ice-bound as of this writing.

I would rather live in Santa Barbara myself.

But I have great strength in communing with my relatives, and going back in time to the old village in Switzerland. A grounding exercise.

And what I know is that when you go back to your past, that's not what it's really about  -- read this FB post from Uncle Chuck -- Kathleen's Dad.

Carolyn Reidy was leaning on the rail of the sailing ship, coming to America in 1850. ( my great-grandmother )

Uncle Chuck was her grandson. I don't have a photo of him, but better than that, I have an image of flight. Uncle Chuck worked for United Airlines in the Chicago, and he believed in the future.

One thing he told his children and his nephews and his nieces. He said,

"Nothing is beyond your imagination. You can accomplish anything if you set your mind to it."

This family story I am writing is not about the past. It's not about the old village in Switzerland. This story is about the future, because that's what our parents and grand-parents wanted for us. They didn't fill our ears with tales of the old country. Those old places were left behind. It was all about the future for them and for us. Nothing is beyond your imagination.

-- 

Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001