If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?
A book shop focusing on philosophy. Of course it needs a cafe for people to discuss various ideas. Maybe the cafe could have times dedicated to particular people – 11 am is Nietzsche Hour!? It needs an outdoor section for existentialists to sit. It can serve the nihilist breakfast – black coffee. Of course, it would be vegetarian.
I would call it Llama.
42 years! Longer than some people’s life.
So this story has been doing the rounds of social media. I am not sure I should comment on the story. I do not know the particulars. I am impressed that the priest has chosen to wear choir dress.
So, I will add these general points:
Make time not to eat. And eat simpler. A day without meat is a good start. Maybe only one meal a day? Simply be aware what and when you eat and why you eat.
Set aside time to fast! Control food and do not allow it to control you. Be intentional in your eating habits.
Even with Crowe, this is ok. What would the world look like if David had never spoken?
What are some life hacks that you practice?
I am not sure this is a life hack but …
Make time for the things you enjoy. Read more! Dance more! Be you as much as you can. Do not let the world censor you – be unapologetically you.
Do you believe in karma?
Do I believe that actions have consequences? Yes. But maybe that does not mean I believe in karma! Karma, in my understanding, is the idea that my intention (good or bad) makes the consequence for me good or bad. And, above all, I do not believe that I will be reborn – death is final!
I believe that one day Jesus will return (from heaven) to judge “the quick and the dead”. That means, for me, that one day I will be personally held responsible for my choices and actions. Doubt, in this context, is my personal unwillingness to act upon my beliefs. And for that I will be judged by Jesus. So my actions or inactions have consequences today and tomorrow.
Of course, it is early in the morning and I could change my mind by later today.
Very simply—I want honesty. I am not, as some well-intentioned people … have wanted to represent me, I am not Christian stringency in contrast to a given Christian leniency.
The Moment and Late Writings
Certainly not, I am neither leniency nor stringency—I am human honesty.
I want to have the mitigation that is the current Christianity here in this country set alongside the New Testament in order to see how these two relate to each other.
If it proves to be so, if I or anyone else can show that it can be maintained face to face with the Christianity of the New Testament, then I will accept it with the greatest joy.
But one thing I do not want at any price: I do not want to create, by suppression or artifice, the appearance that the current Christianity in this country and the Christianity of the New Testament resemble each other.
How do you write what people actually want to read?
I appreciate very much everyone who Likes or comments on my posts. If that is you, thank you!
But I write for me. The prompts help me to put things into context. Yet the context is “me”. I have an audience of one. The process of writing helps me to get things straight (sometimes) in my own head (and heart). So I post quotes that help me or random thoughts. More as a collection than an attempt at connection.
Again, if you connect with my posts, I am super happy. Thank you for reading.
One of the first books on the revival of religious life within the Anglican Communion is titled, The Silent Rebellion: Anglican Religious Communities 1845 – 1900.
In the Preface, Allchin states:
The technical meaning of the word ‘religious’ presents some difficulties in a work of this type. For one thing, the terms ‘monk’, ‘monasticism’, etc., were used indiscriminately from the time of the Reformation until the middle of the nineteenth century or later, to describe all types of religious community. In recent times it has been usual among careful writers to confine the words ‘monk’ and ‘nun’ to religious who belong to contemplative communities or follow some form of the rule of St Benedict. But a further problem arises about the word ‘religious’ itself, especially in connexion with the question of vows. According to the Directory of the Religious Life issued by the Advisory Council on Religious Communities, with the authority of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the religious state is described as ‘one of voluntary and complete self-consecration to God’, ‘attained by the voluntary undertaking of certain obligations sealed by Vows, Perpetual or Temporary’ (op. cit., 2nd ed., 1957, pp. 1 and 7). The forms which religious communities may take are many, ranging from the purely contemplative to those actively engaged in works such as preaching, teaching or nursing. And, as the Archbishops state in their
Commendation of the Directory, ‘the vocation to the service of God in Communities under the threefold Vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience is an energy of the Holy Spirit which a Directory of this kind can never properly describe.’ It is interesting to notice that the Directory itself includes within its scope on the one hand Solitaries who have received ‘the rare and difficult vocation of living the Contemplative Life in solitude’, and on the other hand communities whose members express a life intention of stability, but are not under the obligation of vows. An examination of the early history of Christian monasticism, and indeed of the theological aspects of the question, suggests that although vows form the usual expression and safeguard of this form of life, in themselves ‘they do not constitute the religious life’, which is rather ‘the life of the Spirit within the heart of those who take the vows’. (For a fuller discussion of this point see below, pp. 74-77 and p. 187.) In other words, the life is founded in the Word of God, and not in the words of men. It is brought into being by certain words of the Gospel which all Christians have to face, and which some are called to accept in a particularly literal way. The story of St Antony the Great, who went to church one Sunday and hearing the Gospel read ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me’ (Matt. 19.21), took God at his word, is in this sense typical and original of every religious vocation. All the subsequent developments of Christian monasticism come from this one single root.
There is a sense that the above describes the difference between an Eastern understanding, that we may call Monastic Life, and a Western understanding, that maybe called Religious Life. I think it is a good place to start when thinking about what it means when Jesus says, “if any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24).
