Repugnant Interpretations

39 Articles of Religion

Anglican Church

VI. Of the Sufficiency of the holy Scriptures for salvation.

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. 

XX. Of The Authority of the Church

"Controversies of Faith: And yet it is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to God’s Word written, neither may it so expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another."

Little Mercy Without Wisdom

"But... for mercy one must have wisdom. This has been a true throughout our history and will remain one for a long time to come."
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1. 

There is a certain understanding about life and the world that drive great mercy and other ideas about it that do not.

Thought about this statement for a long time this morning. I think he is correct.

Stories Help Us Digest Wisdom

"Story is the palm oil with which wisdom is swallowed. "

(Yousufu,  Guinea , West africa. Heard on BBC Podcast about Eola and how story was used to spread messages.)

Needing Old Men With Histories Stories

"The old fellow withthe lively eyebrows - and at sixty-three he in no way bore himself like an old man - was Abatoky Ilyich Fastenko. He was a big asset to our Lubyanka cell - both as a keeper of the old Russian prison traditions and as a living history of Russian revolutions. Thanks to all that he remembered, he somehow managed to put in perspective everything that had taken place in the past and everything that was taking place in the present. Such people are valuable not only in a Cell. We badly need them in our society as a whole. 

Right there in our cell we read Fastenko's name in a book about the 1905 Revolution. He had been a Social Democrat for such a long, long time that in the end, it seemed, he had ceased to be one."

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. VOL 1.

A Humble Virtue

"And just as farmers behold with greater pleasure those ears of corn which bend and bow down to the ground, while they look upon those that from their lightness stand straight upright as empty pretenders, so also among those young men who wish to be philosophers those that are most empty and without any solidity show the greatest amount of assurance in their appearance and walk, and a face full of haughtiness and contempt that looks down on everybody, but when they begin to grow full and get some fruit from study they lay aside their proud and vain 277 bearing. And just as in vessels that contain water the air is excluded, so with men that are full of solid merit their pride abates, and their estimate of themselves becomes a lower one, and they cease to plume themselves on a long beard and threadbare cloak, 278 and transfer their training to the mind, and are most severe and austere to themselves, while they are milder in their intercourse with everybody else;.... "

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher.

Here, But Not Really Present

"Presence is the one thing necessary, and in many ways, the hardest thing of all. Just try to keep your heart open, you're mine without division or resistance, and your body not somewhere else. Presents is the practical, daily tasks of all mature religion and all the spiritual disciplines.

If you observe wise people, you see that they actually lose a certain interest in gathering more and more information, books, and news. These can clutter what is already at clear field, open site, and simple presence to the moment."

- Richard Rohr. The Naked Now 

Passing From Flattering and Artificial Discourses

"..... so those who go in for philosophy, when they have passed from flattering and artificial discourses to such as deal with character and emotion, are beginning to make genuine and modest progress in virtue.

Furthermore, take care, in reading the writings of philosophers or hearing their speeches, that you do not attend to words more than things, nor get attracted more by what is difficult and curious than by what is serviceable and solid and useful." 

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher

A Delayed Frozen Mind

"Antiphanes said playfully that in a certain city words were frozen directly they were spoken, owing to the great cold, and were thawed again in the summer, so that one could then hear what had been said in the winter. So he said of the words which were spoken by Plato to young men, that most of them only understood them late in life when they were become old men. And this is the condition people are in in respect to all philosophy, until the judgement gets into a sound and healthy state, and begins to adapt itself to those things which can produce character and greatness of mind, ....."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher

Love & Willingness Are Better

"In my own Franciscan philosophical tradition both St. Bonaventure and John Duns Scotus top that love or willingness were higher than mere knowledge."
-Richard Rohr. The Naked Now 

God Is Breaking Into Every Age & Culture

"St Francis told us Friars that if we found a page of the Quran, we should kiss it and place it on the altar. His Christian truth was not fear-base. He could honor God and Holiness anywhere it was found, and not just inside his own symbol system. 
If there is indeed one God of all the Earth, then it is this one God who is breaking through in every age and culture, and monotheists should be the first to recognize that truth is one (Ephesians 4:4-6) and that God is "all in all" (1Corinthians 15:28. Yet they usually end up fearing and even opposing these ideas, probably because in their own lives their religion has been tribal more than transformative. Perhaps we want to belong to something exclusive, the equivalent of a religious community club, but by that time, of course, our God has become very small and been whittled down to our size."
- Richard Rohr. The Naked Now 

Enjoying the 10% Truth?

"In all situations, of course, the all-important question is: "Is it true?" Not: "Is it from my group?" "Does it please me?" "Does it displease me?" "Does it use my vocabulary and my definitions?" Not even "Is it 100 percent true?" Who cares? The saint would say. "Only the ego cares," the Buddhist would say; and the ego is not interested in truth or in God, only in control. If it is even 10% true, the saint is grateful and happy for that gift.

St. Thomas Aquinas said in the thirteenth century: If it is true, then it is from the Holy Spirit."

- Richard Rohr. The Naked Now. 

Ironing Out Your Complex Beliefs

".... it is your actions that most accurately reflect your deepest beliefs - those that are implicit, embedded in your being, underneath your conscious apprehensions and articulable attitudes and surface-level self-knowledge. You can only find out what you actually believe (rather than what you think you believe) by watching how you act. You simply don't know what you believe, before that. You are too complex to understand yourself. 
It takes careful observation, and education, and reflection, and communication with others, just to scratch the surface of your beliefs. Everything you value is a product of unimaginable lengthy developmental processes, personal, cultural and biological."
- Jordan Peterson. 12 Rules For Life

Don't Marry With Your Eyes Or Fingers

"Olympias, on another occasion, when a young courtier had married a wife who was very handsome, but whose reputation was not very good, remarked, "This fellow has no sense, or he would not have married with his eyes." We ought neither to marry with our eyes, nor with our fingers, as some do, who reckon up on their fingers what dowry the wife will bring, not what sort of partner she will make."

- Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. First Century Greek Philosopher and Priest of Apollo and Guardian of the Oracle of Delphi. 

Silence Is Rarely Regrettable

"For silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. And that is, I think, the reason why the ancients instituted the mysteries that we, learning therein to be silent, might transfer our secrecy to the gods to human affairs. And no one ever yet repented of his silence, while multitudes have repented of their speaking. And what has not been said is easy to say, while what has been once said can never be recalled."

- Greek Plilisopher Plutarch. 1st cen AD. Priest of Apollo and Guardian of the Oracle of Delphi.

Other Ways Of Seeing

"Because we are so scientific now and so determinedly materialistic it is very difficult for us even to understand that other ways of seeing can and do exist."

- Jordan Peterson 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote To Chaos

When What We Know For Sure Is Not Sure

"It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so." 
~ Mark Twain

Current Wisdom Killed Jesus

""Bad” people didn’t kill Jesus; conventional wisdom crucified him."

~ Richard Rohr

The Art Of Unsaying

"All saying must be balanced by unsaying, and knowing must be humbled by unknowing."

~ Richard Rohr. The Naked Now

When A Plumber Gives A Priest Advice

"One night at a (AA) meeting, a man in our group said this was the only place where a plumber could teach a priest how to live. That intrigue me and brought me back to the next meeting, where a fellow gave the best advice I'd ever heard about living one day at a time.
"When you go to bed at night," he said, "kick your shoes so far back under the bed that you have to get down on your knees the next morning to get them. While you're down there, ask God to help you make it through the day. That night, thank him for what he did for you and kick your shoes way back under the bed again.""

~ Bill Irwin. Blind Courage

Many Gentle Prophets

"The simplest way you can recognize if true contemplation is present in an era or a group is that there will be an explosion of solitaries and gentle prophets."

~ Richard Rohr