I Am Not Hamlet

 So, I'm two for two at Front Porch Republic. I sent in four poems to another publication; I'm awaiting a word from that. For now, here's a piece on blessing. https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/05/blessings-to-impart/

"Therefore whoever is not illuminated by such great splendors in created things is blind. Anyone who is not awakened by such great outcries is deaf. Anyone who is not led from such great effects to give praise to God is mute. Anyone who does not turn to the First Principle as a result of such signs is a fool.Therefore open your eyes, alert your spiritual ears, unlock your lips and apply your heart, so that in all the creatures you may see, hear, praise, love and adore, magnify and honor God, lest the entire world rise up against you." -- St. Bonaventure,  Itinerarium mentis in Deum  

Most Western Christians are Augustinian in some way and I can't deny that myself, even though I have trouble with the man's outlook in ways I can't fully articulate.  Still, the Western church didn't make him a saint for nothing (in the East he's known as Blessed Augustine--they never fully warmed up to him).  Anyway, here's a piece from his gigantic magnum opus (and this was hand written, mind you) City of God book 22, chapter 22. This life of ours--if a life so full of such great ills can properly be called a life--bears witness to the fact that, from its very start, the race of mortal men has been a race condemned.  Think, first, of that dreadful abyss of ignorance from which all error flows and so engulfs the sons of Adam in a darksome pool that no one can escape without the toll of toils and tears and fears.  Then, take our very love for all those things that prove so vain and poisonous and breed so many heartaches, troubles, griefs, and fears; such insan...

"Love receives but does not take what is not given."  --Joan L. Roccasalvo, C.S.J. Why is something so simple so difficult? Why am I so slow to learn?

I remember back in Sunday school when I was 14 or 15, and Sister "B." asked us what person from the Bible we most identified with.  I don't remember whom I chose--I do remember struggling with an answer--Moses, maybe?--but most of my peers chose the famous, the strong, the victorious: Peter, Paul, David, etc.  Those people all seemed larger-than-life, how could I identify with them.  They are in THE BIBLE , after all. Flash forward 30 years and here I am, unemployed, bounced-off unemployment insurance (for doing the right thing, I believe), struggling to find clients for my business, driving a 15 year-old vehicle that won't last much longer and wondering where is the favor of God? As the days roll on, and possible employment opportunities or clients become just smoke, I find myself tied up in a plastic bag full of fear.  The fear expresses itself as anger at God, which morphs into guilt.  Guilt because who am I to lash out at God when I could be a Syrian refug...

Those of us who struggle with habitual sins--and we know who we are--are very likely to break our hearts over the business of turning away from those chronic mark missings [from the Greek word for sin: amartia --SFM].  Our problems with recurring sin, and the more general human problem of being enslaved by sin, is never simply solved by our rejecting that sin, no matter how many times we try, no matter how strenuously we struggle to reject it. That is because merely rejecting sin--that is, focusing on not sinning--is finally just another species of infernal no . "Just say no" is an insufficient principle. The strongest man or woman in the world is not nearly strong enough to triumph over his or her sin simply by saying no to it.  What we need is the strength-giving grace occasioned by our saying yes to something else , by our saying yes , and yes , and yes --ceaselessly--to Someone else. It is not our finally turning away from sin that frees us from sin's ...