Hiddenness, a Place of Purification
One of the reasons that hiddenness is such an important aspect of the spiritual life is that it keeps us focused on God. In hiddenness we do not receive human acclamation, admiration, support, or encouragement. In hiddenness we have to go to God with our sorrows and joys and trust that God will give us what we most need.
In our society we are inclined to avoid hiddenness. We want to be seen and acknowledged. We want to be useful to others and influence the course of events. But as we become visible and popular, we quickly grow dependent on people and their responses and easily lose touch with God, the true source of our being. Hiddenness is the place of purification. In hiddenness we find our true selves.
~ Henri J.M. Nouwen in Bread for the Journey
received through “Daily Meditation” from HenriNouwen.org
Hi Jutta
I’m still working on this but I’ll put it out now, this is a good place. I was uncomfortable in using the word odd, perhaps unusual is a better word. IE normal. Rather than thinking of Hyper sensitive people, maybe we should look at the dichotomy as others being sub sensitive people. in this context i am restating what i said originally as odd, to unusual. IE a normal person is unusual, not odd, but unusual. does that make sense?
http://keytoann.wordpress.com/2010/06/15/normal/
eLG
I understand you, but I can also understand the other side. by the way, I don’t have a problem with “odd” 😉
Hi Jutta,
That’s why you’re not an idiot. Got to be careful with words. consider the word irrational. what the word actually means is not subject to ratios. an aristotelian view. the meaning has morphed to mean illogical, whereas originally it meant mythos as opposed to logos the two ways he have of interpreting the world (ether, Plato). so odd is perhaps the wrong word, unusual is perhaps better. As to balance, nope, it’s inside the skull. there are two pivot points inside, one outside. In Platonic terms logos and mythos inside, ethos outside. in your terms perhaps, religion and spirituality inside and GOD outside. So unless you feel that you transcend god, the external pivot point is moot in terms of what you can do. What can be done is to balance the religion and spirituality so as to have a harmonious relationship. it is 100% up to you to decide if you want a good relationship with god (depending how much credibility you put into predetermination). thomas aquinas pointed this out when he said “there is no virtue if there is no choice” I agree, the choice is yours. It’s inside the skull. entirely. please note I am not challenging what you are saying, only pointing out how the minds work. It doesn’t matter what subject you’re thinking of, the minds work exactly the same way in evaluating God, physics, society, the universe.
This is my Tao Mobile.
http://timephreak.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/the-tao-mobile/
It’s inside the skull. entirely. I haven’t done a christian mobile but you can plug religion into yang, spirituality into yin and god into tao. If you’re talking man you’re talking ego in the yang, self esteem in the yin and society in tao. do not get confused by the words, the word is not the concept. I can see no difference between god and the universe for instance. or tao for that matter, the same thing is happening in the mind, and different words are being used to describe the experience. this is why i view the debate between religion and science moot. It’s silly. They’re fighting the battle of Moot Hill in the yin/yang wars, to the detriment of everyone.
I refuse to accept that idiots are normal. They’re the norm perhaps, but certainly not normal. From your perspective, do you really think god gave us this marvelous cognitive device for us to be idiots? idiots they are, and idiots they shall remain.
I’m going to copy this to respond to your comment on my post.
eLG
but you can’t deny that ‘norm’ and ‘normal’ are related, linguistically spoken 😉
Hi Jutta
Only in that they both start with an N, in this case they belong to mutually exclusive sets.
walt