inkanblot.com

Mortals dwell in that they receive the sky as sky. They leave to the sun and the moon their journey, to the stars their courses, to the seasons their blessing and their inclemency; they do not turn night into day nor day into a harassed unrest.
(Heidegger, “Building Dwelling Thinking“)

(courtesy of one who prefers another stanza)

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
(Dylan Thomas, “Fern Hill“)

I believe in God the Father, Almighty Creator of all things visible and invisible, near and far, close to Him and close to me.

I believe the Son and the Spirit are this same Creator God.

then, to think “the culture” matters

or signifies

or has substance

or is

to be in a culture where, being a Christian dedicated to the least involvement of the State in the church’s life, pro or con, yea or nay, I am one of the feared and loathed oppressors

to be constantly inundated by debates about the direction of culture, when we know full well the culture can’t be changed except by what remains invisible to debates about the coercive measures used to constrain it

to be asked to believe that it matters so much where the nations of this world bury their dead before it burns….

note the “hastening” in that last. how odd to be thought odd for that!

Flashing back again to days long gone by, I think of this fabulous futile love of Sydney Carton’s:

“My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you–ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn–the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!”

He said, “Farewell!” said a last “God bless you!” and left her.

Who yet made his life good in that one promise, kept; for her.

Pretty much everything in this letter, from the very end of The Count of Monte Cristo (the book, not the movie, which has half the characters and less of the plot), is philosophically false; and yet, in a younger year, this letter did more for me to mark the nature of our hope, through evil times, than many another, more useful thing. Dantes is, of course, more devil than God; and yet we hope our own visions are reflected more accurately in the ending, in the “Wait and Hope,” than in the course of the Dumas novel.

My Dear Maximilian, –

There is a felucca for you at anchor. Jacopo will carry you to Leghorn, where Monsieur Noirtier awaits his granddaughter, whom he wishes to bless before you lead her to the altar. All that is in this grotto, my friend, my house in the Champs Elysees, and my chateau at Treport, are the marriage gifts bestowed by Edmond Dantes upon the son of his old master, Morrel. Mademoiselle de Villefort will share them with you; for I entreat her to give to the poor the immense fortune reverting to her from her father, now a madman, and her brother who died last September with his mother. Tell the angel who will watch over your future destiny, Morrel, to pray sometimes for a man, who like Satan thought himself for an instant equal to God, but who now acknowledges with Christian humility that God alone possesses supreme power and infinite wisdom. Perhaps those prayers may soften the remorse he feels in his heart. As for you, Morrel, this is the secret of my conduct towards you.

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living.

Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words, — `Wait and hope.’ Your friend,

Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo.

I said philosophically false–and yet, on a very strict construction of “in the world,” the reduction of all to difference et ne plus ultra does not entirely miss the mark, either.

We choose between summum nihil est and consummatum est! daily, and in person; the person of Christ.