The Light in the Woods

#3 – THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS – OCTOBER 2005

© Aubri Dennison 2005

10/1/05 Insights from Prayer      This is all I’m really asking God for in all my petition prayers, no matter what form they take; that He gives me the grace I need in order to serve Him better and approach the perfection I need in order to sit by Him throughout eternity.

10/2/05 Reflections           Religious fundamentalists are often accused of thinking anything enjoyable is sinful — how humanly arrogant to deny the use of God’s gifts. Undeniably, it’s common for us to go to extremes to the point where we forget whose gifts these are and that their purpose is more than for self-gratification. This is what needs to be exposed and opposed by right-thinking people. But those on the other end of the spectrum, where any enjoyment is a distraction from God, should confine that doctrine to themselves only; it’s still extremism and certainly it’s also arrogant to deny anything worldly as being sinful in light of it’s divine creator.

10/3/05 Inspirations       We often recall that we have to walk a mile in our neighbor’s shoes to understand him. We can’t do that with God. Because we can never understand Him, we call upon our faith to tell us who He is and what He does. We watch an eagle silently soaring above and think we know all about an eagle, but we don’t, because we can only attribute to it the human thoughts and feelings which are the only things we know. Things probably look a lot different from an eagle’s perspective than we think they do, because we aren’t meant to know what the eagle experiences. It’s the same with God — we don’t know his ways and when we try we are wrong because the human perspective is all we know. Thankfully, we’re given faith to be able to interact with God, and the example of Christ to know what He wants of us. All we have to do is accept that faith and act on it and we have been assured our salvation. All the rest is better left to God, whose divinity is able to handle it.

10/5/05 Insights from Prayer      If I offend someone and feel I can work off my guilt by doing good works for others, it’s a nice gesture but it doesn’t address the hurt I’ve caused the other person. A direct apology is needed. In the same way, there isn’t enough here on Earth I can do to make up for hurting God because He is infinite, the hurt I cause is infinite, and nothing in the finite world can make amends. I have to tell Him in prayer that I’m sorry – what a powerful thing prayer is, to be an acceptable pathway between the finite and the infinite, the temporal and the everlasting, the earthly and the heavenly, and between God and me.

10/5/05 Insights from Study      Christ’s suffering on Earth made our salvation possible, and His continued grace given to us who desire it makes our salvation probable. The doctrine of “through Him, with Him, and in Him” is important because our goal is to become Christlike, and in the Eucharist literally to contain Him; finally in eternal perfection to be Christ ourselves – true children of God living with Him.

10/5/05 Insights from Study       Just as the Pharisees bastardized the spirit of Mosaic law by overly-strict adherence to the letter of the law, so too do some otherwise religiously-endowed overdo the words of the Bible, which are so dependent on humans and their fallibility, at the expense of the spirit of the Bible. There is much that we need guidance on that isn’t covered by the Bible directly – why limit our dogma to the interpreted words of the Bible when it’s the gist of its teachings that we need to learn in order to fill in the blanks? I know of God-fearing, good people who can quote you from the Bible exactly why they should hate you. They learned the words and missed the lesson.

10/6/05 Insights from Study        When you’re immersed in the Bible and experiencing the long history of man, you realize the troubles and loss of values and morals in today’s world aren’t all that unique – man has been disappointing God and those who love Him since time began. How cleaver of God to give us short lives so we don’t despair too long.

10/6/05 Inspirations       Love of God is a unique thing in that it’s both the means and the end at the same time.

10/8/05 Reflections So much of the world’s problems are rooted in religion and people’s defense of their beliefs, as atheists gleefully like to point out. I would think you would have to work very hard to be a true atheist given the fact that only a divine entity could make something out of nothing and billions of people accept that. What the God-fearing should really be meditating on is that there can only be one God, and who has given us only one set of right and wrong. Everything else is window dressing. Churches have their place in encouraging the individual to come to know God, but when the individual communicates directly with his creator he will intuit the creator’s will and either accept it or reject it. Brought down to this basic a level, how could we have a quarrel with one another – we are all God’s children and all loved with His all-encompassing and boundless care.

10/8/05 Reflections       Anyone who draws faith from the Bible shouldn’t criticize those who draw faith from other writings as well – if you maintain that the Bible is sacred and true because its authors were inspired by God, you may concede that others could be so inspired, as God is still working within us today as in the past. I have never been comfortable with the doctrine that what was decided to be biblical is the end of it and there the word of God stops. The writings of the saints and doctors of the Catholic church can be just as inspired by and acceptable to God as those of the Bible authors.

10/9/05 Insights from Prayer          We wish for more miracles because we think of miracles as good things sent from God. We should contemplate the miracles that do take place – planes that don’t fall from the sky, tectonic plates that don’t shift to cause earthquakes, motorists who smile at you when you make a driving mistake, babies born with perfect bodies, adults with ravaged bodies allowed to die in peace, tornadoes that bounce over towns to touch down in open fields. To ask for more miracles is to forget that all life, all movement, all emotion, all history is the work of God. Even tragedy has a divine purpose, even if only to remind us that God, not man, is in control. These are our miracles, but they’re only of use to us if we recognize them for what they are instead of wishing the divine creator would come up with something a little more like what we had in mind.

10/9/05 Reflections        Here’s something I’ve found to be totally satisfying: to have a purpose which does you good and others benefit, and have the time, the right place, and the conditions to allow you to carry out that purpose. You can strive for this, but if it just falls into place naturally that’s even better, because that’s an affirmation that your purpose is just and good.

10/9/05 Inspirations        Scientists tell us that humans evolved over very many years; creationists tell us to look to our Bibles to see that man was created in one fell swoop. Both will tell us that you must believe their way and not the other’s, and that it’s absurd to believe both theories together. But I do believe both theories are correct. I believe in the order the Bible gives to creation, but that “day” is an interpretation of human beings, since to God there is no time. I believe man was one of those “beasts” created on the sixth “day”, who evolved and bettered just as all the beasts did. And when God was ready he “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” — at that one point in the development of the universe this chosen beast became made the image of God; a living soul as opposed to a living organism. From that point this kind of creation was called man — God’s special wonder for whom God held such love the he alone would be slated to live in God’s presence and favor forever.

10/14/05 Reflections        I hate to be given advice concerning my vices by people who have never had to contend with those vices. For instance, skinny people look at me and see a fat slob who won’t quit putting too much food in her mouth, when in fact I’ve done battle with this vice and suffered much denying myself what I want through will power I don’t have much of; more suffering than people who haven’t waged that battle will ever understand or probably could stand up to. This reminds me of the reason the Word was made incarnate in Christ. Before that, people could say “It’s easy for God to make the rules and for angels to come down and tell us what to do and what not to do — they don’t have any temptation to sin and don’t have to live among sinners.” Jesus came in the flesh to do just that, and by His example we learn how to handle the adversity that comes with being human. The divine part of His nature shows us the need for righteousness, and the human part encourages us by showing that righteousness can be achieved despite the state we’re in.

10/15/05 Insights from Study        The notion of the origin of the universe without God is the most far-fetched thing I ever heard. How dare the people who say they believe that accuse me of gullibility for my faith?

10/15/05 Insights from Prayer         Prayer is the giving over of ourselves to God. We speak to Him directly through the fiber-optic cable manned by those who have gone before us and those still living – the communion of good pray-ers to which we belong and want to emulate and increase.

10/16/05 Reflections           The dry and empty times are when you either have an insurmountable questioning of your faith or have the experience where when you go to contemplate your faith, nothing comes to mind at all. Two opposing reasons but one result -– a feeling that your faith has abandoned you and you have abandoned your faith. But these too are moments provided by the Lord. They are teaching opportunities to help develop your faith; to detach us from the comfort of faith rewarded, so we can get back to pure faith for faith’s sake and take advantage of yet another path to holy perfection.

10/17/05 Insights from Study        Atheists (and hedonists who happen to believe in a Creator) very often feel like the God-fearing should leave them to their vices because they aren’t hurting anyone but themselves. This is misguided on so many counts. First, they are hurting others, either directly to individuals or indirectly to the society in which we all must live. Second, even if it were true that they were only hurting themselves, they are still children of God and worthy of our concern. But third and probably most important in this day and age, when you sin you add to the economy of sin, which when viewed by the young just learning their way, accumulates to make it seem like sin is OK and it’s religious intervention that’s abnormal. It’s been my experience that sinners collect other sinners to march on society – by claiming a majority they can validate their acceptance of their sin. They can, in fact, make it appear that if you oppose them you yourself are at fault for being a busybody and bigoted besides. They can cloud their sins in issues that spring from their human failing because if everyone has these failings is it right to try to overcome them? Well, yes — not only is it right, to the God-fearing it’s a requirement to follow Christ’s example to point out sin and bring about change in the sinner, even if we suffer his slings and arrows.

10/20/05 Reflections      Even though statistically I’m not, I often feel like the minority when it comes to belief in God, or maybe acceptance of His divinity over man. But that’s because atheists or agnostics tend to be in the cities where the population resides and makes their way of life out to be the norm. It’s amazing that God keeps blessing this country so highly when you consider the hedonism that abounds – maybe it’s because God understands better than I do that most people are good even though misguided, and that the anti-God people seem strong because they’re vocal and in-your-face. They stick together and speak to the cities, where people never seem to see anything in the course of their day that isn’t man-made. They don’t experience enough nature, which is God’s finest showing of His creation and the innocence of freedom from self, and have been insulated from God’s spiritual displays. No wonder they fall lax in this secularity – they are constantly bombarded with earthly things around which their lives revolve.

10/21/05 Inspirations          The blessings of inner peace and satisfaction which we experience in this life when we give our will to the Lord are a small taste of the rewards we will experience in our eternal life — though this life is as nothing compared to the next one, which it’s not in our power to understand or even bear.

10/22/05 Inspirations        Scientists say that it’s statistically unlikely that Earth would be the only place in the universe containing beings with intelligence and free will. They’re ignoring that with God all things are possible and whatever God wills, that’s the case.

10/30/05 Insights from Study        There’s been much controversy within the Catholic Church concerning vocations for women. I haven’t firmed up my opinion yet. The magisterium of the Church has decreed that women can’t be ordained as priests or deacons because the apostles whom Jesus chose were all men, and we get our policy from this tradition. I have two thoughts that for me redefine the tradition on which we base our requirement for ordained vocations. 1) While all the apostles were men, I’d be willing to bet that the spread of Christianity throughout the world was successful in great part to Christ’s disciples, of which there were many women and still are. If the Church is adamant that the bishops are modern-day apostles, and women can’t be priests because priests are eligible to become bishops and popes, then to me it follows that there’s nothing inconsistent with women disciples being ordained as deacons since their participation as ministers in service to priests and bishops is also a clear tradition. 2) Given the chattel status of women in Christ’s time it would have hurt His cause to appoint women as apostles, for no one would convert if they were scandalized by being preached to by a lowly female. But today it’s the exclusion of women which hurt the cause of evangelism within the Catholic Church, so how to best spread the Word should be the tradition to follow.

10/30/05 Insights from Study      We’re all destined to live two lives, one on Earth and one in Heaven – in the Eucharist we acknowledge this dichotomy in many ways. God gave our Lord flesh and blood, just as He gave every one of us flesh and blood. For Jesus as for us, God then took this need for flesh and blood away because our place is beside Him in paradise. We cannot earn this transition; it’s a gift to us from God, through Christ, made possible by Christ’s sacrifice of Himself. Without His life and death we would be slaves to sin forever — with our human weakness we need to be reminded of this over and over in order to show our gratitude by living a sacred life. Each time we receive the Eucharist we receive Christ’s flesh and blood, the same flesh and blood He Himself received from God. And so this miracle literally resides within us, completing the connection between ourselves and God; bringing about the perfection which will bring us close to God for eternity and filling us with God, Christ and the Holy Spirit for our work in this life.

10/30/05 Insights from Prayer          Dear God, thank you for showing me the purple thunderclouds parading in front of the full moon, just in time to remind me that no matter how bad things get in the world, You are still in control — the working of the world that was always important is still important though everything else seems to be falling apart.

10/30/05 Insights from Study       I find it striking that more than once in today’s study God is telling me why He allows things to happen that test our faith, at a time when I’ve been questioning my commitment as I find it hard to concentrate during prayer. Page 143 of the Dialogue of St. Catherine says it best – to exercise us in virtue, to raise us above our imperfection, to demonstrate what life without God’s care would be like, to get us to come to Him for help in our time of trouble; all this to achieve the holiness for which God created us in the first place.

10/30/05 Insights from Study          Tonight I watched two National Geographic documentaries; both left me with a bad feeling about how we think we’re superior to previous cultures because we resort to science to really get to the bottom of things, as if humans have any noticeable fraction of the knowledge God has. The first was about mysteries of the Bible – though they know most people watching are believers and the producers have to hold back their cynicism for practical purposes, you can tell that after every study of how other cultures in other times thought of God and His role in Bible history, the substantive point always comes when the scientists finally ride in on their gallant steeds and debunk the Bible explanations. For example, one line on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah said that thanks to science we know that the end was brought on by natural disaster, not the will of God. Well, duh! Isn’t God powerful enough to use nature for His purposes? The other show was about the plague of the mid-fourteenth century – after gleefully expounding on how religious practices not only couldn’t stop the plague but were the cause of much hysteria causing other atrocities during the plague, they proudly explain that science now knows that bacteria was the cause and no amount of religious fervor could have stopped it. Like God was incapable of fighting bacteria if and whenever He wanted to, and prayer from His people wasn’t a motivation for wanting to. Maybe God will punish our arrogance with the next disease epidemic.