Time hastens on. Nor does it roll idly by. Through our senses it works a strange work on the mind. Behold the moments came and went, day by day, and by coming and going to introduced other ideas and other remembrances to my mind. Little by little they patched me up again with my old kind of delights and to these my sorrow gave way. There followed then, not other griefs, indeed, but the causes for griefs to come. For how could that former grief so easily have reached my inmost soul but that I had poured out my soul in the dust in loving one who must die as if he would never die? What restored and refreshed me chiefly was the consolation of other friends with whom I had loved him instead of you. And this was a kind of fable, a drawn out lie by whose adulterous contact my soul which lay itching in my ears was being defiled.

But that fable would not die to me, no matter how often any of my friend might die. There were other things in them which took up my mind; to talk and joke together to do each other kindness by turn to read pleasant books together to play the fool or to be serious together; to disagree at times as a man might do with himself and by the infrequency of these differences, seasoning our more frequent agreements; sometimes teaching, sometimes learning; longing for the absent with impatience and welcoming their coming with joy. These and other things like them proceeding out of the hearts of those that loved and were loved in return by look, speech, the eyes and a thousand pleasing gestures were so much fuel to meld our souls together and out of many to make us one.

This is what is loved in friends and loved so mush that a man's conscience condemns him if he does not love the person who loves him, looking for nothing but indications of his love. From this comes mourning when one dies, the blackness of sorrow, the soaking of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned into bitterness and with the loss of the life of the dying, the "death" of the living. Blessed is the man who loves you and his friends in you, and his enemy for your sake. For he alone loses none dear to him, if all are dear in him who cannot be lost. And who is that but our God, the God who made heaven and earth and fills them even by filling them [with himself] creating them? None lose you but the one who leaves you well pleased to you displeased? For where does he not find your law fulfilled in his own punishment? And your law is truth and you are truth yourself.

Turn us again, O God of hosts; cause your face to shine we shall be saved. Foe no matter where their soul of man turns itself unless it is towards you, it is riveted to sorrows, yes, even though it is attached to beautiful things. Yet such things would be nothing if they were not from you. They rise and set; and by rising, they begin, as it were to be; and they grow towards their perfection; and perfected they grow old and perish. All of them do not grow old but all of them perish. The more quickly they rise the more rapidly they hasten toward not being. This is their law. this much you have allowed them because they are portions of things which do not exist all at the same time but by following one another in succession they make up that universe of which they are parts.

In the same way our speech is completed by separate sounds. But it is necessary for one word to pass away when it has sounded its part so that another may succeed it. Out of all these things let my soul praise you, O God, Creator of all. Yet do not allow my soul to be fastened to these things with love of them through my physical senses. For they tend towards 'not being' tearing the soul with pestilent longings because it longs to be, yet loves to rest in what it loves.

But it cannot rest in these things; they do not remain. They fly away and who can follow them with the senses of the flesh? Yes, who can grasp them even when they are close by? For the sense of the flesh is slow because it is a fleshly sense and is limited by the flesh. It is sufficient for the end for which it was made but it does not suffice to stop things running towards their appointed end. For in your Word by which they are created, they received their commission. 'This far - and no farther!'

Do not be foolish, my soul, and do not deaden the ear of your heart with the tumult of your folly. And hear! The Word itself calls you to return to that place of rest where love is not abandoned if it does not first abandon itself. Behold, some things pass away that others may replace them and so this lower universe is made complete in all its parts. "But do I ever depart?" asks the Word of God. Fix your dwelling there; trust whatsoever you have there, O my soul, for now you are worn out with deceits. Entrust to Truth whatever you have from the Truth and you will lose nothing; and what is decayed in you will flourish again and all your diseases will be healed. Your perishable [bodily] parts will be reformed and renewed and restored to you again. They will not drag you down to where they themselves are laid but they will abide with you before God who continues and abides forever.

Why then, O my soul, be perverse and follow your flesh? Let it turn and follow you instead. Whatever you feel through it is but part of the whole. Feeling only the parts you do not know the whole, yet you are delighted by them. But if the senses of the flesh had the capacity for comprehending the whole and if they had not been justly restricted to parts of the whole you would wish that all the parts would pass away so that the whole might better please you.

For what we speak, you hear by the same sense of the flesh and you would not wish each syllable to remain. Rather you want them to fly away so that other syllables may follow and the whole be heard. And so it is ever: when anything is made up of different parts, all of which do not exist together they would please you more if they could all be perceived at once than they do severally. But far better that these is he who made the whole. He is our God. He does not pass away and there is no one to take his place.

If physical things please you, then praise God for them but turn back your love to him who created them, lest in the things that please you, you displease him. If souls please you, love them in God; for in themselves they are changeable but in him they are firmly established. Without him they pass away and perish. In him, then, let them be loved and carry along with you to him as many souls as you can and say to them "Let us love him, let us love him, he made the world and is not far from it. He did not make all things and then leave them but they are of him and in him.

See, there he is wherever truth is loved. He is within the very heart, yet the heart has strayed from him. Return to your heart, O you transgressors and hold fast to him who made you. Stand with him and you will stand fast. Rest in him and you shall be at rest. Where do you go in these rugged paths? Where do you go? The good that you love is from him. But it is good and pleasant by being referred to him and it will justly become bitterness if he is forsaken for it. Why, then, do you still wander in these difficult and toilsome ways? There is no rest where you seek it. Seek what you seek but it is not where you seek it. You seek a blessed life in the land of death; it is not there. How could there be a blessed life where life itself is not?

Our true Life came down to...................

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Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -