Thursday 23 November 2023

Easy to say and to want, but impossible to do fully or consistently

Easy to say and to want, but impossible to do fully or consistently...

That structure implies to so-much of Life - we cannot actually do what we genuinely want most to do. 

Except things are even worse! Because it isn't really even "easy to say" what is true, good and virtuous - even that usually takes a lot of discovering. So much so; that when we have discovered The Good we are prone to think that our work is done - yet, really, it has only just begun and never shall be completed. 

Such is the nature of this mortal life - nothing is perfect, nothing lasts... But we have enough of what is Best for us to know that we want more, and forever.   


At present; I am aware of my own failure to recognize the livingness of this world; my failure to live in accordance with the knowledge that there are no Things but only Beings. I know this - but I don't experience it very frequently, and live mostly as if the world was indeed dead and indifferent - as our civilization assumes. 

Similarly; I am aware of my own lack-of-awareness of a whole world of spiritual Beings - principally the Dead, particularly the resurrected Dead - but also, presumably, all manner of other spiritual Beings - some on the side of God's creation, others almost indifferent or undecided, others who have chosen to oppose God... I believe these exist and are important; but I am hardly ever aware of them; hardly ever genuinely take them into account. 

I don't suppose any of this can be overcome in any complete or lasting fashion - at least, not by me. There will be this gulf between knowledge and belief on the one hand; and lived experience and practice on the other hand. 


It could be said, therefore, that we are all 'hypocrites' in that nobody lives up to The Good. 

Yet despair is a sin; and we need to counter the consequent pessimism by reminding ourselves that if something is impossible, and God is the creator; then God does not expect it! 

What God, presumably, wants from us is not the perfection but the learning, knowing, and striving. 

What God expects is not material (which, anyway, is always defective, entropic, temporary) but spiritual - and we are only partly and intermittently spiritual Beings.


We need to know enough to know what-we-want: that's the main thing. 
 

No comments: