When I entered the room to identify my Mom’s body shortly after her death from a car accident some 26 years ago, I was immediately struck by the utter absence of animation that had always superseded the physical processes of her body. The heart had stopped but the departure of her soul left a form bereft of any semblance to the warm, loving person she had always been. And while I grieved, I was assured she had departed this place to journey to a far better place. The very absence of her soul affirmed my belief in the existence of her soul…and by extension the belief of my own.
Speaking of free will, I have always appreciated the absolute power of choice coupled with the unknown consequences of random choices exercised by other people. When you roll the dice you take your chances. Most of my imperfect experiment of traveling through life with God has been a series of mitigations designed to pick the best path forward between my stubbornness and his perfect will. The closer I can follow the six rules Jesus set for us, the happier I am. His grace and steadfast love remains the greatest mystery of all. It inhabits everything in my life
It occurred to me as I read this that The City that Never Sleeps, and as you say never dreams, never transfers its experiences into long-term memory. Isn't this the distinctive trait of the modern age and the city which personifies it? We seem to simply repeat the same things over and over and only realise belatedly that we have been here before and learnt nothing.
I suspect that just as important, but less obvious, as the need for sleep to learning and growth is the need for sabbath rest. We are losing the capacity for things to have beginnings and endings. Our world is one never ending chain without First Cause or prospect of conclusion. Our hope is to be able to say, 'It is finished.' on Friday afternoon and begin something new on Sunday morning.
Very interesting observation re the connection of "Sabbath Rest" to the process of transferring experience to long-term memory so as to support learning and growth.
"...now that the pain has passed I finding myself yearning for what it can show me."
You've spread some joy with this piece, Mr. Bisone. I may be wrong about this - and I certainly don't intend to cast any responsibility onto you! - but I consider you a few steps ahead of me on the journey God's leading us on. My pain is passing, and my yearning increasing, so perhaps I'll be spreading joy myself soon. I guess what I'm trying to say is that your writing is appreciated and makes a difference. Thank you.
Thank you John. I don't think it's a race but a multi-party expedition. We gather around the campfire to compare notes, share stories, sing songs and spread joy.
At the crossroads of the confrontation of spirit and flesh, lies the soul - that inimitable, irascible energy of individual personality and consciousness. We can no more define by delineation, the moats and castles of our prescient 'we are' than we can extend a hand and touch the face of God whom we intrinsically know *IS* but cannot see, touch, taste or truly feel.
And if this were not confounding enough, we become aware of the oppositional forces of good and evil, love and hate - all of which defy mere words which are but crooked, primitive sledge hammers, cat-gut saws and tree gum glue in the desperate articulation of life.
When out of sheer elective grace, we are set aside, given the incredibly priceless gift of salvation we find ourselves, breathless of soul unable to not just fully comprehend the value of the gift, but that a perfectly holy, perfectly just God would have *anything* to do with us, we might blink in that blinding light, pick up our cross and follow Him.
Luke 17:33, "Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it."
To quibble, the hermeticism and rosicrucianism that I am familiar with is not about "posit[ing] a jailer-demiurge or evil godhead."
It is though much about this however: "And one of these days, your physical life will end. Your biological eyes will become useless to you. You’ll only have your soul’s eyes, from that point on, and no available means of changing their condition.
"What kind of shape will they be in, when all is said and done?
Regarding your note on safety - if matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and if matter proceeds from mind, then it stands to reason that mind, or consciousness cannot be destroyed. Therefore, fear in regards to safety can and should be discarded when this fear interferes with the pursuit of spiritual growth.
Ultimately, we will all die and our consciousness will continue our journey, whether that be reincarnation into another life or ascension / descending into a higher or lower vibrational plane - however, what matters in the here and now is how you develop spiritually, and, even more importantly, your affect on your spiritual siblings around you - do you pull them down further into the prisons of their own minds or do you help uplift them along with yourself into an ascended state aligned with our creator?
I think, ultimately, we get too bogged down with textual rules and hair splitting over technicalities - the gift of the Godspark within us is we KNOW right from wrong and need to follow that thread where it leads. And, while many are ignorant, it is up to those who know more to pull up our spiritual sibilings with us
Thank you for this - as always - "Spread Joy, dummies" is such sound advice!
May your cup of joy always be brimming over. :)
In relation to this, though:
"What often seems less easy for some to grasp is that joy requires the possibility of tragedy. This appears to be the fundamental error of Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Catharism, Rosicrucianism and other -isms that posit a jailer-demiurge or evil godhead. Neoliberal Feudalism detailed the supposed contradiction in a recent piece, can be boiled down to the following question.
“Why would an all-good and all-powerful God ever allow bad things to happen?”"
Positing a Devil has often appeared to me to be just as much of a fundamental error. Is the Devil not ALSO understood to be evil incarnate (or at least evil in-spiritate), even though (as your Reyburn quote says) "Evil has no being of its own, after all, but relies always on the good"?
I might have agreed with you and Duncan even a scant few years ago. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I experienced otherwise. The experience of that evil being informs all of my thinking and writing on the subject of evil, and on metaphysics more generally. So if it is in error than i suppose everything I think and write is in error.
Everyone is free to think that, of course, and I don't look down on anyone who does. Some things must be seen to be believed. Or at least that's true for some people; like Thomas, I'll never be blessed to believe sight-unseen. It's also true that I needed to make a spectucular error of my own to get my glimpse. Somewhat "ironically", that's also what it took to save me, and get me back on the right path. But I wouldn't recommend it. Could've gone either way.
So while I wouldn't criticize anyone who says "demons don't exist", I would offer a word of warning: just like the mundane criminal or serial killer plies their trade in shadows and covers their tracks, it is the same in the "unseen" world, and for much the same reasons. Once revealed, they are weak, cowardly, open to attack and exorcism. The reason that the apostles could drive out demons is that Jesus granted them the authority to see them for what they are.
In that sense, I'd recommend believing that the Devil exists, but recognizing his fundamental weakness and lack of authority. He and his minions are beneath us in the order, which is why the foot crushes the snake, and why we call their lair the underworld. Acknowledgement of existence isn't the same as respect.
I absolutely do not speak for Duncan, and I think his point is quite different to mine, in any case.
Actually, I DO trust your (Mark's) "sense" of evil, and of monstrosity, and so on, because, throughout your writings it is so abundantly clear that what you have stood upon in facing such things both in the world, and in yourself, is resolute courage and deep love. **
I suppose I personally could not speak, with accuracy, of "error" in any case, since my own belief is that we are here to learn, and that we learn mostly by failing at a test/challenge repeatedly until we gain enough insight - mostly from, often adverse, experience - to pass it, and then get presented with a new test to fail at repeatedly until we learn enough to pass that one, and so on.
I suppose I am mostly trying to understand a viewpoint that DOES define the idea of an evil demiurge as being in "error", but does not define the idea of a devil as being an "error" of the same kind. What is the difference between these two concepts? Is it that the first is credited with world creation and the second is not?
Personally I have no doubt that demons - ie unseen, but present, beings of malign intent, exist, but I also think they have no positive weapon by which to subvert or force good to become bad, and thereby be brought down to their level. As you say, their trade is deception, their habitat the shadows, where light does not shine, also they must flee from the light, and cannot go where they are not invited. There is no evil committed by a human that can honestly be attributed to "the devil made me do it". Because, as you rightly say, the Devil is fundamentally weak, and we ourselves never lose the power to say "get thee behind me" (ie - you stay in the shadow, I choose to face the light) to a demon's "offers". Rather it is if/when we incline to an evil deed, or an evil thought, that demons can turn up, and attempt to use our own will (our very power) as a weakness by which to deceive and subvert and bring us away from the light.
** This is why you are the FIRST sub-stacker I ever paid to subscribe to, and why I would love to go on buying you coffees, except that option does not appear to be available to paid subscribers... ;)
I have had the experience twice in my life of seeing both evil and the divine in others’ eyes. On one occasion it was glittering malevolent hatred, which was terrifying to behold. On the other it was a rapturous magnetism that was impossible to deny. I was already inclined toward faith, but not a practicing Christian; those experiences left me in no doubt of the presence of good and evil. It was tangible.
When I entered the room to identify my Mom’s body shortly after her death from a car accident some 26 years ago, I was immediately struck by the utter absence of animation that had always superseded the physical processes of her body. The heart had stopped but the departure of her soul left a form bereft of any semblance to the warm, loving person she had always been. And while I grieved, I was assured she had departed this place to journey to a far better place. The very absence of her soul affirmed my belief in the existence of her soul…and by extension the belief of my own.
Speaking of free will, I have always appreciated the absolute power of choice coupled with the unknown consequences of random choices exercised by other people. When you roll the dice you take your chances. Most of my imperfect experiment of traveling through life with God has been a series of mitigations designed to pick the best path forward between my stubbornness and his perfect will. The closer I can follow the six rules Jesus set for us, the happier I am. His grace and steadfast love remains the greatest mystery of all. It inhabits everything in my life
Reminds me of
"The face is a picture of the mind with the eyes as its interpreter."
Marcus Tullius Cicero
And the painful albeit beneficial awakening covid has brought, with the subsequent awakenings to the deceptions permeating our reality.
So absolutely true!
It occurred to me as I read this that The City that Never Sleeps, and as you say never dreams, never transfers its experiences into long-term memory. Isn't this the distinctive trait of the modern age and the city which personifies it? We seem to simply repeat the same things over and over and only realise belatedly that we have been here before and learnt nothing.
I suspect that just as important, but less obvious, as the need for sleep to learning and growth is the need for sabbath rest. We are losing the capacity for things to have beginnings and endings. Our world is one never ending chain without First Cause or prospect of conclusion. Our hope is to be able to say, 'It is finished.' on Friday afternoon and begin something new on Sunday morning.
Very interesting observation re the connection of "Sabbath Rest" to the process of transferring experience to long-term memory so as to support learning and growth.
"...now that the pain has passed I finding myself yearning for what it can show me."
You've spread some joy with this piece, Mr. Bisone. I may be wrong about this - and I certainly don't intend to cast any responsibility onto you! - but I consider you a few steps ahead of me on the journey God's leading us on. My pain is passing, and my yearning increasing, so perhaps I'll be spreading joy myself soon. I guess what I'm trying to say is that your writing is appreciated and makes a difference. Thank you.
Thank you John. I don't think it's a race but a multi-party expedition. We gather around the campfire to compare notes, share stories, sing songs and spread joy.
great essay.
the first part very much reminded me of Blake:
"This life's dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”
in another manuscript, he expounds on this concept using a window as metaphor. as in, a person sees though a window, not with the window…
At the crossroads of the confrontation of spirit and flesh, lies the soul - that inimitable, irascible energy of individual personality and consciousness. We can no more define by delineation, the moats and castles of our prescient 'we are' than we can extend a hand and touch the face of God whom we intrinsically know *IS* but cannot see, touch, taste or truly feel.
And if this were not confounding enough, we become aware of the oppositional forces of good and evil, love and hate - all of which defy mere words which are but crooked, primitive sledge hammers, cat-gut saws and tree gum glue in the desperate articulation of life.
When out of sheer elective grace, we are set aside, given the incredibly priceless gift of salvation we find ourselves, breathless of soul unable to not just fully comprehend the value of the gift, but that a perfectly holy, perfectly just God would have *anything* to do with us, we might blink in that blinding light, pick up our cross and follow Him.
Luke 17:33, "Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it."
To quibble, the hermeticism and rosicrucianism that I am familiar with is not about "posit[ing] a jailer-demiurge or evil godhead."
It is though much about this however: "And one of these days, your physical life will end. Your biological eyes will become useless to you. You’ll only have your soul’s eyes, from that point on, and no available means of changing their condition.
"What kind of shape will they be in, when all is said and done?
"What will you have prepared yourself to see?"
Regarding your note on safety - if matter can neither be created nor destroyed, and if matter proceeds from mind, then it stands to reason that mind, or consciousness cannot be destroyed. Therefore, fear in regards to safety can and should be discarded when this fear interferes with the pursuit of spiritual growth.
Ultimately, we will all die and our consciousness will continue our journey, whether that be reincarnation into another life or ascension / descending into a higher or lower vibrational plane - however, what matters in the here and now is how you develop spiritually, and, even more importantly, your affect on your spiritual siblings around you - do you pull them down further into the prisons of their own minds or do you help uplift them along with yourself into an ascended state aligned with our creator?
I think, ultimately, we get too bogged down with textual rules and hair splitting over technicalities - the gift of the Godspark within us is we KNOW right from wrong and need to follow that thread where it leads. And, while many are ignorant, it is up to those who know more to pull up our spiritual sibilings with us
Excellent essay.
Loved this beautiful piece very much. Thank you for writing it♥️
Thank you for this - as always - "Spread Joy, dummies" is such sound advice!
May your cup of joy always be brimming over. :)
In relation to this, though:
"What often seems less easy for some to grasp is that joy requires the possibility of tragedy. This appears to be the fundamental error of Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Catharism, Rosicrucianism and other -isms that posit a jailer-demiurge or evil godhead. Neoliberal Feudalism detailed the supposed contradiction in a recent piece, can be boiled down to the following question.
“Why would an all-good and all-powerful God ever allow bad things to happen?”"
Positing a Devil has often appeared to me to be just as much of a fundamental error. Is the Devil not ALSO understood to be evil incarnate (or at least evil in-spiritate), even though (as your Reyburn quote says) "Evil has no being of its own, after all, but relies always on the good"?
I might have agreed with you and Duncan even a scant few years ago. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) I experienced otherwise. The experience of that evil being informs all of my thinking and writing on the subject of evil, and on metaphysics more generally. So if it is in error than i suppose everything I think and write is in error.
Everyone is free to think that, of course, and I don't look down on anyone who does. Some things must be seen to be believed. Or at least that's true for some people; like Thomas, I'll never be blessed to believe sight-unseen. It's also true that I needed to make a spectucular error of my own to get my glimpse. Somewhat "ironically", that's also what it took to save me, and get me back on the right path. But I wouldn't recommend it. Could've gone either way.
So while I wouldn't criticize anyone who says "demons don't exist", I would offer a word of warning: just like the mundane criminal or serial killer plies their trade in shadows and covers their tracks, it is the same in the "unseen" world, and for much the same reasons. Once revealed, they are weak, cowardly, open to attack and exorcism. The reason that the apostles could drive out demons is that Jesus granted them the authority to see them for what they are.
In that sense, I'd recommend believing that the Devil exists, but recognizing his fundamental weakness and lack of authority. He and his minions are beneath us in the order, which is why the foot crushes the snake, and why we call their lair the underworld. Acknowledgement of existence isn't the same as respect.
I absolutely do not speak for Duncan, and I think his point is quite different to mine, in any case.
Actually, I DO trust your (Mark's) "sense" of evil, and of monstrosity, and so on, because, throughout your writings it is so abundantly clear that what you have stood upon in facing such things both in the world, and in yourself, is resolute courage and deep love. **
I suppose I personally could not speak, with accuracy, of "error" in any case, since my own belief is that we are here to learn, and that we learn mostly by failing at a test/challenge repeatedly until we gain enough insight - mostly from, often adverse, experience - to pass it, and then get presented with a new test to fail at repeatedly until we learn enough to pass that one, and so on.
I suppose I am mostly trying to understand a viewpoint that DOES define the idea of an evil demiurge as being in "error", but does not define the idea of a devil as being an "error" of the same kind. What is the difference between these two concepts? Is it that the first is credited with world creation and the second is not?
Personally I have no doubt that demons - ie unseen, but present, beings of malign intent, exist, but I also think they have no positive weapon by which to subvert or force good to become bad, and thereby be brought down to their level. As you say, their trade is deception, their habitat the shadows, where light does not shine, also they must flee from the light, and cannot go where they are not invited. There is no evil committed by a human that can honestly be attributed to "the devil made me do it". Because, as you rightly say, the Devil is fundamentally weak, and we ourselves never lose the power to say "get thee behind me" (ie - you stay in the shadow, I choose to face the light) to a demon's "offers". Rather it is if/when we incline to an evil deed, or an evil thought, that demons can turn up, and attempt to use our own will (our very power) as a weakness by which to deceive and subvert and bring us away from the light.
** This is why you are the FIRST sub-stacker I ever paid to subscribe to, and why I would love to go on buying you coffees, except that option does not appear to be available to paid subscribers... ;)
Thank you! What a wonderful reading tread for a Sunday morning.
I have had the experience twice in my life of seeing both evil and the divine in others’ eyes. On one occasion it was glittering malevolent hatred, which was terrifying to behold. On the other it was a rapturous magnetism that was impossible to deny. I was already inclined toward faith, but not a practicing Christian; those experiences left me in no doubt of the presence of good and evil. It was tangible.