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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/20/2009 2:36 PM (GMT -6) |   | Tom:
Do you G A F about the what Christ G's A F about?
I have a simple request for anyone who cares about the answer to this question. Please listen to the following in it's entirety. Even if you've heard it before. My answer is in there. I'm asking...please. 
Pilgrims from Paradise
Detachment
Posted April 02, 2009 
Matthew examines the necessity of loving Christ above all.
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/20/2009 3:41 PM (GMT -6) | | The 'heart' is the very deepest and truest self, not attained except through sacrifice, through death.
Dominican Richard Kehoe
Pages 1-10, if you want...
Got an analogy. For the heart as it relates to the self.
Imagine the "self" as a hurricane. The "deep heart" would be the EYE of that hurricane. The eyewall is analogous to the "place of death" to enter the heart. The eyewall is the place with the highest, most violent winds...yeah...
Raging all around, but in the center, a powerful calm.
I think this is analogous to the immanent Presence of God within all human selves. The "peace that passes all understanding" is 1) inseparable from Divine Presence, 2) within the center of every human "self", and 3) can only be achieved through a struggle...a "dying" process.
Make sense?
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Kallistos Ware from the book...
Because of our personal sinfulness, and dwelling as we do in a fallen world, the human heart is deeply ambivalent, a battle-field between good and evil forces. The heart is thus the aren in which we come face to face with the power of sin. "Out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander", Christ warns us (Matthew 15:19); and, referring to the contemporary pagan world, St. Paul states: "God gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their hearts" (Romans 1:24). At the same time, however, the heart is the place where we come face to face with the Divine: "God searches the hearts" (Romans 8:27). It is more specifically the locus of the indwelling presence of God the Holy Trinity: "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying "Abba! Father!" (Galatians 4:6; compare Romans 8:15-16). The heart is in this way the point of self-transcendence, where my human personhood is taken up into the Divine life; it is the meeting place of the created and the Uncreated. It is in and through the heart that the believer is enabled to affirm, not in a sentimental and imaginary fashion but with strict literalness, "It is not longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).
It is not possible for us to appreciate more fully the true dimensions of the saying that we have already quoted from the Psalms, "The heart is deep" (63:7 964:6] ). Along with Proverbs 4:23, this is another key text in Orthodox neptic theology. It means that the human person is a profound mystery, that I undestand only a very small part of myself, that my conscious ego-awareness is far from exhausting the total reality of my authentic Self. But it signifies more than that. It implies that in the innermost depths of my heart I transcend the bounds of my created personhood and discover within myself the direct unmediated presence of the living God. Entry into the deep heart means that I experience myself as God-sourced, God-enfolded, God-transfigured. Although sinful and unworthy, I am yet enabled to say with humble confidence, "His life is mine."
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/20/2009 3:30:23 PM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/24/2009 10:08 AM (GMT -6) | |
I'm listening to this a second time. Wow. This is simply great. Makes me want to share it with EVERYONE!
One Love said...Tom: Do you G A F about the what Christ G's A F about?I have a simple request for anyone who cares about the answer to this question. Please listen to the following in it's entirety. Even if you've heard it before. My answer is in there. I'm asking...please.
Pilgrims from Paradise
Detachment
Posted April 02, 2009
Matthew examines the necessity of loving Christ above all.
(o) | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 11/24/2009 10:15 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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JET
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Date Joined Jun 2002
Total Posts : 397
| Posted 11/24/2009 12:55 PM (GMT -6) | | I just listened over lunch. Glad I did. Thanks for reminding me of this.
PotOnWheel said...
I'm listening to this a second time. Wow. This is simply great. Makes me want to share it with EVERYONE!
One Love said...Tom: Do you G A F about the what Christ G's A F about?I have a simple request for anyone who cares about the answer to this question. Please listen to the following in it's entirety. Even if you've heard it before. My answer is in there. I'm asking...please.
Pilgrims from Paradise
Detachment
Posted April 02, 2009
Matthew examines the necessity of loving Christ above all.
| | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/24/2009 3:41 PM (GMT -6) | | No problem, man. It truly IS a blessing to hear again and again. By God's Grace, go we on this path together. 
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All. | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/26/2009 1:51 AM (GMT -6) | | | Yo, Tom. I was thinking about the "deep heart" thing. Remember this?
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In the Secret Place of the Most High God
by Father Stephen
"Every human being has a 'secret place' – that within them that is most intimate – that is beyond words – that is made for God. Learning to enter this place is a very difficult thing and only comes with time and practice. Our culture, the world where the most secret things in our lives are shouted from the rooftops, tells us to profane even our secrets and shout them to the world as well. And thus we lose something at the very core of our Personhood. Violated, every man and woman becomes a harlot."
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Tom hit it squarely...
We AGREE that a human being's identity as a PERSON doesn't come from the memories she has, the actions and behavior she engages in with her context, her relationships with other human beings, nor from anything else in the created realm. Nothing in creation and tell me WHO I am. Only God can do that. So there has to be a place, a moment, an experience where God and I get this done, where I experience God in Christ through the Spirit telling me that I'm a priceless beloved son, that the very sustaining core of my existence, where the potential for fulfilling my 'logos' resides, is an indestructible grace-gift from God that doesn't derive from anything in the created order.
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Yo, Tom. Would you go so far as to say that UNTIL a human being has truly had this experience, that said person is NOT operating in a fully personal mode of existence...not expressing their full humanity? Can human existence be "authentic" (ie. not bound to nothingness) WITHOUT indwelling such an interpersonal reality with God?
Thoughts?
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/26/2009 12:58:22 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/26/2009 2:08 AM (GMT -6) | | I keep thinking about all those Christian mystical voices that talk about "Live like there's only God and you in existence." and stuff like that.* You know...the stuff that usually sounds weird to people. What's quite interesting is that when one's mind dwells "in the heart", this is EXACTLY what you'd expect. In other words, these mystics live in God's World...while never leaving Jesus' Presence in the Holy of Holies in their own deep hearts. They STAY in Jesus' presence there...like Mary (contra Martha).
This would be the "detached" way of relating to the world the mystics are heavily into. Surely, you relate to the world, but only from the standpoint of a SINGULAR LOVE for the Spiritual Presence of the Jesus. This way, you not only TRULY love others rather than just suffer attachment (Remember what Matthew Galatin said!)...but youalso KNOW that Jesus will never leave or forsake you (the best gift EVER!!!). Why? Because you KNOW that you KNOW that you KNOW that Jesus is the center of your existence? How do you know that? Because you CONVERSE with him in your heart at every moment. Jesus is a LIVING REALITY to you as you indwell your "deep heart". There, it's just Jesus, you, and His Kingdom. Jesus ain't some story...or some guy off somewhere we don't know...or he not some ABSENT presence we take time to memorialize. Nope. He's the ground to everything that exists. He's the supermassive black hole to your galactic formation...if you get my drift. 
Until one's "deep heart" is claimed as one's true self, the full reality of the "ecclesial hypostasis" CANNOT be expressed to that degree. Therefore, true personhood cannot be expressed to that degree as well.
*Meister Eckhart on "Detachment"
The man who has submitted his will and purposes entirely to God, carries God with him in all his works and in all circumstances. Therein can no man hinder him, for he neither aims at nor enjoys anything else, save God. God is united with Him in all his purposes and designs. Even as no manifoldness can dissipate God, so nothing can dissipate such a man, or destroy his unity. Man, therefore, should take God with him in all things; God should be always present to his mind and will and affections. The same disposition that thou hast in church or in thy cell, thou shouldst keep and maintain in a crowd, and amid the unrest and manifoldness of the world.
Some people pride themselves on their detachment from mankind, and are glad to be alone or in church; and therein lies their peace. But he who is truly in the right state, is so in all circumstances, and among all persons; he who is not in a good state, it is not right with him in all places and among all persons. He who is as he should be has God with him in truth, in all places and among all persons, in the street as well as in the church; and then no man can hinder him.
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Poustinia:
Ultimately, however, the poustinik's call is to the desert of one's own heart wherein he dwells with God alone, whether in the workplace or in a solitary locale. In the words of Jesus Christ, "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
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"Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing. "
Saint John of the Cross
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/26/2009 3:04:34 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 11/26/2009 2:57 AM (GMT -6) | | D: Yo, Tom. Would you go so far as to say that UNTIL a human being has truly had this experience, that said person is NOT operating in a fully personal mode of existence...not expressing their full humanity? Can human existence be "authentic" (ie. not bound to nothingness) WITHOUT indwelling such an interpersonal reality with God?
T: We're as personal as we perceive the truth about ourselves. So until we recognize how utterly grounded in God we all, and how completely free and gracious is God's presence to, in, and for us, we won't be fully persons.
That's not my most recent question though. Most recently I'm more interested in what our relating to God in this way MEANS FOR GOD personally. See, what I'm saying is that we DO enter into what defines God essentially, i.e., intimately/personally. I don't posit some divine 'stuff' that is the 'essence' of God about which we can say nothing. Was just listening to Hart again recently on this. Good stuff. But I'd say God "essentially" can accommodate genuine contributions from us to his own self-perception and self-understanding but that this (a) is gracious and free on his part, and (b) doesn't undermine the unsurpassable intensity of his satisfaction (because that derives triunely; we play no part in generating the Son or spirating the Spirit, or otherwise determining those 'persons/relations'). But neither are do we engage God in some second or third circle outside of 'who' God is.
Tom
"Man is a person not by nature but by spirit. By nature he is only an individual." Nicolas Berdyaev | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
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Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/26/2009 4:32 AM (GMT -6) | | Tom:
So until we recognize how utterly grounded in God we all, and how completely free and gracious is God's presence to, in, and for us, we won't be fully persons.
Agreed.
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Tom:
Most recently I'm more interested in what our relating to God in this way MEANS FOR GOD personally. See, what I'm saying is that we DO enter into what defines God essentially, i.e., intimately/personally. I don't posit some divine 'stuff' that is the 'essence' of God about which we can say nothing. Was just listening to Hart again recently on this. Good stuff. But I'd say God "essentially" can accommodate genuine contributions from us to his own self-perception and self-understanding but that this (a) is gracious and free on his part, and (b) doesn't undermine the unsurpassable intensity of his satisfaction (because that derives triunely; we play no part in generating the Son or spirating the Spirit, or otherwise determining those 'persons/relations'). But neither are do we engage God in some second or third circle outside of 'who' God is.
I think it's simply this: God the Bridegroom (Jesus) PERSONALLY has a created Bride, without whom he would NOT be a Bridegroom at all. Our relating to Jesus in our "deep hearts" is WHERE we say "Jesus, my Lord and my God, you are with me...and have always been with me." (You are Immanuel) and where HE says "And I will always be with you, even until the end of the age." (Indeed, I AM Immanuel!) to which we reply Like real "Song of Songs", theophiliac type stuff.
I believe this ever-increasing interpersonal intimacy between Christ and his Bride-person makes a real difference to Christ as Bridegroom, who IS God. When we are unfaithful, we grieve Jesus' Holy Spirit. When we are faithful, we don't. That's a significant difference we make. And about as personal as you wanna get, I would think. 
Somethin' else. I think the "deep heart" of a human being is analogous to a "Yichud Room" for Jesus and the human person. I've said this before I know...but I really think it makes sense. I mean, really. Where ELSE is Jesus (God) gonna "consumate" his relationship with us...but in OUR HEARTS? What did the OT Scriptures say about God and the hearts of his people? Yeah... From the site... It is customary for the bride to bless the groom. She says: May you merit to have a long life, and may you unite [with me] in love from now until eternity. May I merit to dwell with you forever.”
I. D. G. A. F.
Christ is All. Post Edited (One Love) : 11/26/2009 3:42:57 AM (GMT-6) | | Back to Top | | |
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