Moved to Tumblr

To the sighs of a few, I have moved my blog over to Tumblr @ solidrant.tumblr.com. Please view my new post there.

Insomnia

For whatever reason, I cannot fall asleep right now.  Maybe its because I did not take any melatonin tonight.  Whatever the cause, I do however feel like working on my talk, so I am going to do that and see where it leads me.

Spiritual Synthesis 1: The Path of Belief

While reading my book today, I came across two related striking revelations.  As the good Jesuit author says, there are many paths to finding God, and anyone can be on any path at any point along the journey.  My current overarching path is the Path of Belief.  I grew up in the Catholic faith, and never had a seriously doubtful time with God.  Oh yes, I've had plentiful opportunities to defect from religious institution but I chose to stay.  All in all, this is a relatively functional way to find God, IF (and that's a big "if") you know the negative attributes of said path.  There is one such negative attribute that I noticed today.  This informational factoid may seem like plain common sense, but do not underestimate its sly demeanor.  Here it is, big revelation number 1: sojourning on the path of belief may anesthetize the vagabond so much that the believing is wrongly done to an artificially fabricated god.  In essence, if your faith has been in God your entire life, it is quite possible for faith to become routine.  In this routine lull period (spanning a few days, months, years, or shamefully a lifetime), one loses their relationship with God.  God is many things: God of Infinite Wisdom, God of Eternal Judge, God of Seeking, God of Surprises, etc; but God is not passive.  God is not a set of purely dogmatic ideals created by a religious institution; this is the "artificial" god.  Some may know what I am describing.  You pray every night, but you are praying to an empty room with yourself, for you are "artificial" god.  You almost out right lose your ability to notice opportunities to act out God's will.  "Artificial" god has no will, he is complacency.  One cannot have a relationship with "artificial" god for he is the sole creation of a selfish human brain.  Those, such as myself, that have fallen into this trap must realize that God seeks a conscious relationship with you.  A relationship means spending time with God, aka. prayer.  Real prayer means letting down your defenses and allowing an intimate soulful connection from God.  Revelation 2 for today is that I have drifted down this path.  Although very bad if left unchecked, this path is not inescapable.  I have realized that I need to see God.  Not physically, but rather see Him in the right viewpoint.  God is not limited to dogma and morals.  God is too big for religion to contain.  Just remember, if you find yourself down this path, take the antidote right away.  Have a meaningful outside-of-the-box chat with God.

God in Everything

Today I had the opportunity to enjoy a large Alterra americano (nothing on Jenn's Java by the way.)  Now there are many aspects of this experience that vastly improved the quality of our venture through downtown Milwaukee, but I think the most exquisite was the connection to God that I felt.  Ok, so I probably looked like an idiot to the outside observer, but while I was strolling out of Alterra I noticed how lovely the breeze that cut through the foliage like an armored piercing round through a paper target (you thought that I was going to use the hot knife/butter metaphor).  In that moment I just knew that this was the kind of thing that the Jesuits talk about: seeing God present in all things.  There wasn't any one attribute of the setting that made the experience a glimpse at God.  Sometimes God just calls out to you where you are and says, "Here I am, working around you everyday."  Non-believers call it what you will, I don't care how daft I looked standing there admiring the breeze; take me as I am.

Enter the Jesuit

So as some of you know, I recently picked up a Jesuit book that I saw on the Colbert report.  I have no idea why I picked it up (maybe besides the Colbert report being awesome! or that Jesuits hit closer to home than anything), but The book is pretty decent.  I am currently 20% through the book and I have already seen it speak to me on multiple levels.  The various unexplainable intricacies in my life have been confirmed and given a logical purpose.   Whether it be the feeling deep down inside of me that aspires to become a saint, or the brief but satisfactory bursts of God's presence made known through numinous episodes.  I'll look forward to reading much more of it after mass today.