I understand that you are supposed to get a congratulatory message when you break the 100 subscriber threshold.
I’m a Gen-Xer, so I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t.
[I have now received the email. Color me surprised.]
But that doesn’t stop me from thanking all of you who have jumped on board, so:
Thank you!
Back in my old blogging days, I had what I described as a rapier’s edge to my writing. In retrospect, it was more like a claymore or zweihander. And it was unsheathed at the slightest provocation. Those familiar with that decade have probably noticed that I am not going that route. Not to say that I won’t get edgy on occasion, but it will be the occasional whiskey shot enjoyed on a late weekend evening, not poured over my bowl of cornflakes every morning. More this guy than the fire and blood one:
It’s deliberate—flame wars are all heat and no light. And Lord knows we need much more light.
I genuinely appreciate all of you who have decided to subscribe to or are just content to follow this meandering spiritual expedition into “the utter East,” as Lewis so memorably put it:
“Where sky and water meet, Where the waves grow sweet, Doubt not, Reepicheep, To find all you seek, There is the utter East.”
I am ever-more convinced that what has ailed me—including what I was unaware of— is gradually being healed by connecting to the abundant graces of the Eastern Christian tradition.
Eastern Churches recognize one spirituality to which we are all called, with different degrees of intensity.
We are invited to live the very life of God, to become intimately related to God — “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pt 1:4), to be physically united to Christ and to have the Holy Spirit dwell within us. Eastern Christian spirituality stresses:
Awareness of our call to be divinized;
The organic nature of our sacramental union with Christ;
A “public life” of worship and communion;
A “secret life” of prayer, fasting and almsgiving; and
The need for “spiritual warfare.”
There it is: theosis.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Up the mount we go.
[Postscript: My wife is concerned some people might not get the reference in the sub-header. I’m referring to this classic, not a recent gruesome one.]
Congrats Dale!
You're unstoppable now.