....for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
"It
is proper to the evil Angel, who forms himself under the appearance of
an angel of light, to enter with the devout soul and go out with
himself: that is to say, to bring good and holy thoughts, conformable to
such just soul, and then little by little he aims at coming out drawing
the soul to his covert deceits and perverse intentions." (Ignatius of
Loyola)
We
are all pilgrims whose life is a being-in-tensions like a pendulum
which swings from one end to its opposite. Superficiality,
individualism, communism, fundamentalism, terrorism, racism, chauvinism,
rationalism, spiritualism, or materialism rest precisely in the end of
the sway, struggling with the opposite power to pull them to another
end. As a matter of fact, sometimes such a conversion leads us to
another extreme, bearing the same law of gravity so that we are pulled
back to previous end. Not really the previous point, for sure, because
the power of constraint decreases.
Maturity
and the depth of life lay in the moderation, that is, when the distance
of pendulum's movement is getting shorter. The deeper our life, the
more mature ourselves, the more stable the pendulum and at the end,
there will be no movement. However, no movement in this world means
death whereas maturity and the depth of life is in no way a death.
Before reaching the threshold of death, maturity and the depth of life
still do have movement. The difference is that this movement of maturity
and the depth of life derives from within, from the fire inside,
sparkling and splashing out.
The
power of constraint, then, does not come from any extreme standpoint
(fundamentalism, rationalism, spiritualism, etc), but from the guts
which animates us to choose: not just between good and bad, but between
good and better. We certainly argue about the criteria of good and bad,
but unless we reach the maturity and depth of life, we never grasp the
moderation of our being-in-tensions. We don't easily feel at home with
our choice. We don't enjoy tension, we escape from the constraints,
because we don't even think that endurance is possible until we reach
the moderation. Things we enjoy in moderation usually last long, whereas
extreme standpoints have potentially fast exhaustion.
Many
happy returns to the day, Friend. Javanese puppet-show has so many
stories which illustrate subtle movements within ourselves. The power of
evil may take advantage of very good reasons to choose, to decide, to
take a stand. Even for the sake of moderation, in the long run it leads
us astray. I hope you understand that we are spiritual beings on a human
pilgrimage.
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