Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Only the composed person is really someone

Quote from Romano Guardini:
"Silence overcomes noise and talk. Composure is the victory over distractions and unrest. Only the composed person is really someone."
Because of our restlessness, confusion, and disorder,
"we do not yet really exist as persons -- at least not persons God can address expecting a fitting response."

As the Kingdom breaks in and shatters the old mythic structures, with their passing we lose the structures that made it possible for us to experience certain cultural and psychological stability.

We're coming unglued. The gospel is the source for us as it shows us the way to another kind of selfhood, a selfhood that doesn't include an entity called the self in our modern day understanding, but a discipleship self - a self that cannot be distinguished entirely from the God who is the ground of its being.

If these old structures pass without some compensating shifts on our part, then the world will suffer from the very violence that these sacred systems existed to ward off. - "The Poetry of Truth: Reflections on the Gospel of Luke" by Gil Bailie: Tape 9 end of side B

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