Sublime but as a sinner I feel some guilt in reading it. Mysticism is maybe not for me. I worry also about quietism... yet again... one of the desert fathers says that when you are in a state of truly holy quietude, the rushing of the rushes will jar your ear as so much tumult. So there is some stainless precedent for it.
I understand that feeling of guilt. I’ve sometimes been tempted not to pray precisely because I felt unworthy. But Christ came to call sinners. St. Paul complained of a “thorn in his flesh” that he could never eradicate, referring probably to some very embarrassing vice — yet the loftiness of the Christian vocation was not closed to him! St. Augustine spoke similarly of vices he could never be rid of, despite the fact he himself was a great mystic! There isn’t really much to mysticism besides just desiring, right now, to be holy. It starts with that. The worst sinner can start there.
When saints decry their sins in the end to me it outs as so much powder. St. Therese said she was a pebble next to mountains, but when you hold a pebble next to your eye, it looks like a mountain. Difference of quantity, not kind.
But I will keep trying to be God’s friend. I trust it will eventually work.
I wonder how Roland Barthes' definition of Atopos fits here. The place, which is also a womb, is also discourse (topos).
"Most of my injuries come from the stereotype [...] But when the relation is original, then the stereotype is shaken, transcended, evacuated, and jealousy, for instance, has no more room in this relation without a site, without topos (atopos)".
I just think it's interesting to talk about formlessness within space, of a place within where idols can't enter.
Sublime but as a sinner I feel some guilt in reading it. Mysticism is maybe not for me. I worry also about quietism... yet again... one of the desert fathers says that when you are in a state of truly holy quietude, the rushing of the rushes will jar your ear as so much tumult. So there is some stainless precedent for it.
I understand that feeling of guilt. I’ve sometimes been tempted not to pray precisely because I felt unworthy. But Christ came to call sinners. St. Paul complained of a “thorn in his flesh” that he could never eradicate, referring probably to some very embarrassing vice — yet the loftiness of the Christian vocation was not closed to him! St. Augustine spoke similarly of vices he could never be rid of, despite the fact he himself was a great mystic! There isn’t really much to mysticism besides just desiring, right now, to be holy. It starts with that. The worst sinner can start there.
When saints decry their sins in the end to me it outs as so much powder. St. Therese said she was a pebble next to mountains, but when you hold a pebble next to your eye, it looks like a mountain. Difference of quantity, not kind.
But I will keep trying to be God’s friend. I trust it will eventually work.
This is one of the most interesting things I've read in a while, hope to see you develop it further!
I wonder how Roland Barthes' definition of Atopos fits here. The place, which is also a womb, is also discourse (topos).
"Most of my injuries come from the stereotype [...] But when the relation is original, then the stereotype is shaken, transcended, evacuated, and jealousy, for instance, has no more room in this relation without a site, without topos (atopos)".
I just think it's interesting to talk about formlessness within space, of a place within where idols can't enter.