I've renamed my weekly blog post from "Blog Post" to "Pattern Recognition." A running theme from week to week is the connections we all make that bring various aspects of our lives together. We call this synchronicity, as Carl Jung coined the term. The spaces between us connect us and create the seemingly serendipitous nature of life.
"We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the utility of the wheel depends. We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the utility of the vessel depends. We pierce doors and windows to make a house; And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the utility of the house depends. Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the utility of what is not." C.G. Jung
Messages Found in Deconstruction
I remember learning the Lord's Prayer when I was a wee lad. We didn't need to know what it meant. But Sister Adrienne was adamant that we spend time understanding it sentence by sentence and word by word. We deconstructed the prayer and learned about its real meaning and why we said it.
I read the Robin Waterfield translation of Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" the other day. Meditations were Marcus Aurelius' journal. Marcus Aurelius was the last of the Five Good Emperors of Rome. His reign (161–180 CE) marked the end of internal tranquility and good government. He is considered one of the great practitioners of the Stoic School of Philosophy. Stoics are mischaracterized as apathetic fatalists. While they see a world organized by a greater force than themselves, they recognize that virtue is the determining characteristic of happiness. The opposite of Stoicism is Epicurean philosophy. Founded by Epicurus in Athens, this school of thought is often mischaracterized as being hedonistic. Epicureans believe that virtue is a means to an end. Use virtue to achieve pleasure.
In mediations, I found a couple of passages worthy of deconstruction.
"People tried to find retreats for themselves in the countryside, by the Sea, and in the mountains. A marked longing for such a haven has been a habit of yours too. But nothing could be more unphilosophical, given that you may retreat into yourself whenever you want. There's no retreat more peaceful and untroubled in a man's own mind, and this is especially true of a man who has inner resources which are such that he has only to dip into them to be entirely untroubled (and by untroubled, I mean composed), so never stop allowing yourself to retreat there and be renewed."
This, to me, is a power of salvation for every person. In your mind, you can find refuge.
The second passage plays off the first.
"Live your whole life unswayed by outside forces and with a holy joyful heart, even if everyone else is crying out against you and wild beasts are tearing limb from limb the lump of paste that has been caked around you. After all, is there anything in all this that makes it impossible for the mind to maintain its tranquility, its ability to judge situations correctly, or its facility at making good use of the circumstances with which it is presented? In effect, then, Judgment says to Situation: 'this is what you really are, even if opinion makes you seem otherwise.' And Good Use says to Circumstance "I've been looking for you! As far as I am concerned, the present is always material for rational and social virtue, and in general for the application of human or divine skill."
The point is that everything in the world is suitable material for God or man. And nothing is new or unmanageable but familiar and easy with which to work. It's also worth noting that contemporary authors such as Frankl ("Man's search for Meaning"), Weisel ("Night"), and Vonnegut ("Slaughterhouse-Five") reference the horrors of WWII concentration camps and the firebombing of Dresden applied this Stoic approach to surviving, and eventually thrive. All three books represented the actual experiences of the authors.
One last deconstruction.
Several years ago, I was in a play entitled "The Medium, or Virtue Triumphant," written by Judith Sargent Murray of Gloucester. In 1794, a new theater in Boston called for plays by American writers. Under a pseudonym implying male authorship, Murray submitted The Medium or Virtue Triumphant. It was produced a year later, the first work by an American to appear on a Boston stage. We were the first to remount this play 220 years later in Gloucester. (https://www.youtube.com/
"Written in the irreversible decrees of fate, the son of sorrow. I would extract a balm for my lacerated bosom and every fair occasion that I might mitigate the ills that seem allotted for a fellow creature. Indeed the power to soothe the woe-fraught mind bears essentially the nature of divinity."
There is a lot to unpack in this one. Simply said, by helping others in need, we find ourselves closer to God. These acts represent the true power of virtue! Rereading this passage connects an 18th century feminist playwright to a Roman Emperor 2000 years earlier. Virtue is a timeless pursuit, it would seem.
More to come.
