#interior life

[lifeinpoetry]

I hear my own voice from a distance:

I don’t want to say the words of what happened.

Some days I’m floating around and don’t know it

— Ryann Stevenson, from “INTERIOR LIFE,” Human Resources

[lichtberg]

"I said to him, I said "Robert, you ..."

(I take a turn and never hear what he says to Robert after all.)

Instagram

[cumuluslife]

Drift-days and dream-flurries . . .

[galahadresearch]

"Amen, amen I say unto you, that the hour cometh, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." John 5:25 DRC

How many of us come into close contact with others who are spiritually dead?

When Jesus comes to Martha and Mary following the death of Lazarus, He asks her if she believes that He is the resurrection and the life, and she confesses her belief that He is the Son of God. It is her faith that plays an integral role in Lazarus' resurrection.

"Did not I say to thee, that if thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God?" John 11:40b DRC

It can be hard to worship in smaller parishes, with less reverent parishioners. Where ugly red bricks abound, and the desire for fellowship is nonexistent. But I realized when reading these passages that when we truly believe in the power of Christ, He can bring the spiritually dead in the pews next to us back to life.

[dramoor]

[signum-crucis]

Sleep tends to be the common experience of letting one’s self go, as is the case with all moments of rest (good or bad). Anthropologically (philosophically) speaking, man was made to rest. In this sense, we might say that letting one’s self go is a necessary dimension of being human. But to qualify this act: we are letting ourselves go into what is ultimately good. (Rest in God)

In this way, excessive control of one’s self is actually a type of vice. Metaphorically it would be like the soul imitating a body always tense, always utilising one’s muscles as though to become rigid, and inflexible.

I think this is the point of virtue -- that our left hand doesn’t know what our right hand is doing. When we do the good for good reason, habitually it becomes second nature to us. In some cases, to have these virtues is to somewhat not even realise that we have them. They simply flow out of our daily attitudes and acts naturally.

But one who exerts strenuous effort to do some externally good act reveals to others perhaps a fault. Perhaps the good habit isn’t there. Perhaps the externally good action isn’t done for the right reason. It’s like that fakery of a smile plastered on a person’s face that communicates something empty. It’s that cleaning of the outside of a cup, but not the inside.

If doing what is good is latently resented by the amount of energy and difficulties required -- it seems empty. I think that’s why sometimes we see people leave the priesthood or seminary or married life or whatever, and end up entering into all sorts of absurd and contrary actions to their vocation. The virtue -- the internalisation of chastity or charity, never happened -- just the external acts, perhaps white-knuckled.

Sometimes Christ has been described in the spiritual sense to be at rest on the cross. Can we relate? Today if a man on the street spat on your face, would you be more concerned for him? Would it be easy to see him as a brother and not worry about our own ego? This virtue requires no control of impulses, or bridling anger. It’s just the fruit of knowing the poor, and serving them in charity.

To circle back to the original point -- we were made for rest. If doing the good is constantly difficult, we might want to ask why. What is preventing the good from becoming second nature to us? Have we perhaps ascribed more meaning to hard work and busyness than we ought to? Are we only doing externally good acts without an interiorly good spirit? Are our good deeds mere external acts, like whitewashed tombs?

Don’t burn out -- instead build virtue. Virtue is only understood properly when married to the interior life. Let your whole self go into what is truly good, and there will be less fragility at the sight of a cross. In fact, we may find rest in it.

~ Fr Christopher Pietraszko

[howifeltabouthim]

. . . they had seen no passion in her, for there was a passion about her quite beyond all expression, a passionate stillness, like that of a closed and sleeping flower, the passion of that which is waiting to break free, to blossom, to overspill the margins of itself.

Tanith Lee, from Delusion’s Master

[santmat]

The Tongue of the Hidden Self (Studies in Syriac Christian Contemplative Mysticism)

"For God is silence, and in silence is He sung by means of that psalmody which is worthy of Him [the psalmody which spiritual beings use to praise Him]. I am not speaking of the silence of the tongue, for if someone merely keeps his tongue silent, without knowing how to sing in mind and spirit, then he is simply unoccupied and becomes filled with evil thoughts: he is just keeping an exterior silence and he does not know how to sing in an interior way, seeing that the tongue of his hidden self has not yet learnt to stretch itself out even to babble. You should look on the spiritual infant that is within you in the same way as you do on an ordinary child or infant: just as the tongue placed in an infant's mouth is still because it does not yet know speech or the right movements for speaking, so it is with that interior tongue of the mind; it will be still from all speech and from all thought: it will simply be placed there, ready to learn the first babblings of spiritual utterance.

"Thus there is a silence of the tongue, there is a silence of the whole body, there is a silence of the soul, there is the silence of the mind, and there is the silence of the spirit. The silence of the tongue is merely when it is not incited to evil speech; the silence of the entire body is when all its senses are unoccupied; the silence of the soul is when there are no ugly thoughts bursting forth within it; the silence of the mind is when it is not reflecting on any harmful knowledge or wisdom; the silence of the spirit is when the mind ceases even from stirrings caused by created spiritual beings and all its movements are stirred solely by Being, at the wondrous awe of the silence which surrounds Being.

"These are the degrees and measures to be found in speech and silence. But if you have not reached these and find yourself still far away from them, remain where you are and sing to God using the voice and the tongue in love and awe. Sing with application, toil in your service until you arrive at love. Stand in awe of God, as is only right, and thus you will be held worthy to love Him with a natural love -- Him who was given to us at our renewal.

-- John the Solitary quoted in, Spirituality in the Syriac Tradition, translated from Syriac-Aramaic into English by Professor Sebastian P. Brock