A CS Lewis quote, from the Screwtape Letters (letter 8):
"Humans are amphibians-half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy's determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change."
Thinking about your emphasis on desire, and the way that Christian history has focused on the dark side of desire ("concupiscence"). This negative hermeneutic has mainly been brought to bear on sexual desire (sometimes, with disastrous results). Your text makes me think that we need to revive the language of concupiscence (or some modern equivalent), but with a focus on economic greed and environmental destruction.
I've been working my way through the Rowan Williams anthology "A Century of Poetry", and this morning I read a sonnet by John Burt on the outrageous notion that Mary taught Jesus how to be human, and hence how to be God incarnate. Which was a good counterpoint to your picture of human consciousness as a loom for the metaphysical and the material.
The test of any introduction is whether it makes you want to carry on reading! And yes, yours does, most certainly.
“...human consciousness is the loom upon which the metaphysical and the material are woven together.” Incredible in its simplicity and density. This reflection could only be accomplished by a truth seeker and risk taker with enormous intellectual gifts and a genuine love of others sustained by faith. A full body dive into what meaning can be given voice to our human experience in our world, together
A CS Lewis quote, from the Screwtape Letters (letter 8):
"Humans are amphibians-half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy's determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change."
Thinking about your emphasis on desire, and the way that Christian history has focused on the dark side of desire ("concupiscence"). This negative hermeneutic has mainly been brought to bear on sexual desire (sometimes, with disastrous results). Your text makes me think that we need to revive the language of concupiscence (or some modern equivalent), but with a focus on economic greed and environmental destruction.
I've been working my way through the Rowan Williams anthology "A Century of Poetry", and this morning I read a sonnet by John Burt on the outrageous notion that Mary taught Jesus how to be human, and hence how to be God incarnate. Which was a good counterpoint to your picture of human consciousness as a loom for the metaphysical and the material.
The test of any introduction is whether it makes you want to carry on reading! And yes, yours does, most certainly.
“...human consciousness is the loom upon which the metaphysical and the material are woven together.” Incredible in its simplicity and density. This reflection could only be accomplished by a truth seeker and risk taker with enormous intellectual gifts and a genuine love of others sustained by faith. A full body dive into what meaning can be given voice to our human experience in our world, together
Thank you. A joy to read