(f) – St. Justin Martyr

I have seen no less than two references to St. Justin Martyr in the last 24 hours. St Justin’s feast day is my birthday, and so I have a special reverence for him.

St. Justin was a philosopher, one could argue before his conversion he was a shaman of “scientism”. From the above link:

The Scriptures and the constancy of the Christian martyrs led Justin from the darkness of human reason to the light of faith. In his zeal for the faith he travelled to Greece, Egypt, and Italy, gaining many to Christ. At Rome he sealed his testimony with his blood, surrounded by his disciples.

St. Justin learned that reason alone was not enough. Faith alone is like lamp oil, reason alone is like a wick–faith united to reason is like a lamp that can burn forever. St. Justin earned the martyr’s crown and did so boldly:

“Do you think,” the prefect said to Justin, “that by dying you will enter heaven and be rewarded by God?” “I do not think,” was the Saint’s answer; “I know.”

St. Justin, pray that I may be worthy to share my birth into this world with your birth into the next; pray that I may, like you, illuminate the hearts of many with the light of faith. Pray that, should the martyrs crown be offered to me, I may accept it with the same boldness and confidence.

St. Justin Martyr, pray for us.

AMDG

CCCXXXVI – Mastery, Mortification, and Motivation

Self Motivation

Self Motivation says “Push yourself”, and means you can do more than you think you can. Typically you have to push yourself into and through discomfort that helps you grow. A runner must push himself to run the last mile, an entrepreneur must push himself to make those investment pitches, an introvert must push himself to socialize, an extrovert must push himself to introspect. These are examples of telling ourselves “It hurts now, but there’s something better coming! Don’t listen to your mind, body, or instinct–it’s going to be ok.”

Self Mortification

Self mortification says “Deny yourself,” and means you are more comfortable than you ought to be. Typically you have to deny yourself creature comforts that stop you from growing. An overweight person must deny himself food (or certain kinds of food) to achieve a healthy weight, an entrepreneur must deny himself money by investing it into his business, a lazy person must deny himself sleep so he can get things done in the day. These are examples of telling ourselves “It’s going to hurt, but only because it’s different–you’re going to be better off on the other side! Don’t listen to your mind, body, or instinct–you don’t need this.”

Self Mastery

Self Mastery says “Perfect yourself,” and means you make you mind, body, or instinct listen to you and not each other. Typically self mastery involves perfecting skills that help us grow. A runner learns to run faster, or run farther; an entrepreneur learns what parts of the pitch get a positive response; a lazy person learns to wake up at the same time every day and is more productive; an introvert learns not to overthink and enjoy the company of others, an extrovert learns to find peace in silence and solitude. These are examples of telling ourselves “These skills are worthwhile efforts–I want to be better at these skills because they help me to be better. My mind, body, or instinct listen to me better for having these skills–I am a better version of myself.”

Synthesis

Self Motivation is a skill that is trained in the pursuit of Self Mastery. Pushing through discomfort is a worthwhile effort, because there is something better coming. We can tell ourselves its going to be OK because we are adding something that makes us better.

Self Mortification is a skill that is trained in the pursuit of Self Mastery. Denying ourselves comfort is a worthwhile effort, because it hurts us and teaches us that the hurt isn’t so bad. We don’t need those comforts because removing them makes us better.

None of these efforts should be undertaken without commending the effort and our lives into the loving arms of God. It is possible to do these things too much. But for some of us, it doesn’t help to begin a journey by wondering how far is too far–it is better just to start. If you bring God with you, He will guide you.

AMDG

(d) – Retiring COVID Procedure

This is just an FYI for friends, followers, and passers by.

During peak Covid, I had posted and pinned a Prayer in times of Pestilence, from March 18, 2020 to May 18, 2021–One year and two months.

Since I saw that COVID was nearing the end, I posted and pinned Prayer of Thanksgiving, starting May 18, 2021.

Today, I am taking down the Prayer of thanksgiving, after One year, two months, and one day. I don’t know how many of you went to the website itself, vs. reading through the WordPress reader (which does not show things like this), but in any case that was a thing and it is no longer a thing, just like COVID.

For the purposes of this blog, COVID is over. Thanks be to God!

CCCXXVIII – On Music

The following was a comment on Wood’s blog which is long enough to be it’s own post. I’ve been thinking about this for some time and even thought about making a post on it, but couldn’t figure out how to approach it. Well, Wood broke the dam and my brain spilled out. Here’s the fruit of that:

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I have been thinking about music and this is an excellent opportunity to speak my mind on the subject.

[A] priest [friend] complained recently that a parish he was stationed at had trouble distinguishing between “Christian Music” and “Holy Music”. Hymns can bring tears to my eyes–Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings/Agnus Dei is one of them. The Ave Maria is powerful. Hillsong United, Chris Tomlin–these are Christian musicians, but not–beautiful, not holy. Not in the same way as Barber’s Agnus Dei or Schubert’s Ave Maria.

When I was younger, I used to hoard music–I got a subscription to Amazon music and I would download everything. Songs that I liked I supposed I would like forever, I wanted to catalog them. But changes in music formats and music delivery systems made hoarding music impractical. I have no idea where all those songs are that I hoarded, or if I am even still technologically capable of listening to them.

There was something in me that recognized that Music touches something beyond mere sensory experience–there is something Transcendent about it, for good or ill. Pink Floyd’s Time is one of my favorite songs, and it is not particularly holy or reverent, but it touches me in way that is unique to me. It took me a longer time still to realize that songs that touch my soul will not touch other people’s souls the same way. Something that stirs me will not stir someone else. I may not feel holiness emanating from Hillsong United or Chris Tomlin (NB: I enjoy both Hillsong United and Chris Tomlin–don’t want you to think they are bad musicians), but someone else might be moved to tears by them. (Still doesn’t make them appropriate for the musical liturgy of the Mass).

What I have settled on recently is that Music is the spice of life. It adds flavor and feeling to an experience, like it adds flavor to a meal, but it takes very little, and it is gone very quickly. You remember the meal, but will probably not remember the seasoning with the same vividness. Yet the seasoning is inseparable from the experience of the meal. So the purpose of music is to help people see themselves, see other people, see God, or see other things with greater clarity. As you say, Music helps tune our souls to something. When we die and, God willing, go to Heaven, we are not going to care what songs we listened to–we will get to participate in the greatest music that is the chorus of Angels: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of Thy glory.

I may forget Pink Floyd’s Time when I’m in Heaven, but in some way Pink Floyd’s Time will have helped me to get there–either by helping me see Beauty, helping me understand myself, or merely by making the fleeting experience of Earthly existence a little more enjoyable.

I didn’t expect to riff off your post so much but all these thoughts were pent up in my head and they just spilled out. Thank you for this post!

AMDG

CCCXXIII – Human Geography

File this one under interesting oddities. With apologies to JMSmith.

I’ve been sucked down a rabbit hole of city builder games on youtube. There’s a game called Cities Skylines, and I’ve found videos by a city planner who plays the game and offers interesting insights into the world of city planning and illustrating that world using the city builder game. It’s been weirdly interesting and captivating.

Recently, I was on a long drive and noticed off in the distance an isolated patch of moderately tall office buildings–a city. Yet it was just a small patch of tall buildings, and everything around it was relatively flat. Why was that the location of a city? Where do cities even come from?

I have mentioned before that I live in the state of Virginia. Virginia is a colonial state–so a lot of our cities are established at the fall line of deep east-west rivers, and those cities are joined together by a north-south rail line. But what about farther west? How far back do the roots of Chicago go? St. Louis?

I once heard a humorous anecdote that in the early days of the railroad, they wanted to put a railroad through a town or county called Henry, Georgia. The town council was all up in arms about it, the railroad would disturb the local peace, it would be a nuisance, all manner of ill follows the railroads. So then the railroad company decided to run the railroad through this small, unassuming town called Atlanta.

Anyway–if I was the mayor of Bohick County, Nebraska, and I wanted to make it a sprawling metropolis, what would I have to do?

The first thing you need to sustain a city is people. In order to get people you need to have some advantage over other cities. You need jobs, space, and low taxes, at a minimum. But even if Bohick suddenly implemented that, where do the sprawling high-rises come from? I know there’s some airspace restrictions in some cities, you would need to remove height limitations–but why would companies relocate to you? How do you take Bohick from agricultural backwater to commercial hub with skyscrapers and an international airport?

The first cities happened because of convenience. St. Louis and Chicago were on trade routes, so they were convenient waypoints. Richmond, Virginia was a secure location with trade access to the sea and up-river. Where do new cities come from? Are new cities possible outside of the colonial era?

These are just things I was thinking about. If I wanted to turn any given town into a sprawling metropolis, what are the steps?

This is, of course, assuming that a new sprawling metropolis is desirable.

AMDG

CCCXXI – Meet Them Where They Are

In a comment elsewhere, it occurred to me the way to unravel the phrase that God “meets people where they are“. I have tried to reconcile this phrase with orthodoxy by supposing that it means God speaks to people in the way best suited to them. A bad hallucination might prompt a drug addict to turn to God–an experience in prison might change the heart of a seasoned criminal–unconditional forgiveness might end a generational feud and convert the beneficiary. Drug addiction is not good because God can speak through it, but God speaking is good even if it is done through a hallucination.

But how are we supposed to do this, in an evangelical perspective? How are we supposed to meet people where they are? In the one sense, we ought to, you know, go to the people where they are. Let’s not cloister ourselves in the Church and wait for all the pagans to show up and ask about Jesus. We have to go out. But to relate to a drug addict, must we be drug addicts ourselves?

CCCXII – Pan Handling By The Information Superhighway

I am feeling emboldened and inspired by what I believe to have been a successful year in 2021. Since I started this blog, I have written over three-hundred articles, discovered a lot of other great bloggers, learned a lot, and found my own ideas maturing into something a little more coherent.

I want to share these ideas with the world, in a way that is a little more organized. Now more than ever I think these ideas are valuable. If I had to summarize briefly what these ideas are, it is simply this: How to live a Peasant Life. I have written a lot about Peasantly things, and Hambone and I have spent a lot of time talking about what it would take to take this to the masses. So I have decided to write a book. I am actually writing two books: One a Peasantly parable set in space, the other a philosophical non-fiction book setting out my peasantly manifesto. Neither of these books has begun, is the thing, but I intend to write them and I have a good idea now of how I want to do it.

CCCVI – Just Do It

I may have mentioned before that when I encounter something accidentally three times, it’s a sign that I need to pay attention to it. Something that has been popping up a lot lately is this motivational idea of “Just do it”.

The core idea is that you need to stop thinking and start doing. Mark Zuckerberg famously described his entrepreneurial mentality as “move fast and break things”–a call to keep moving, and to be okay with making mistakes. St. Joan of Arc said “Act, and God will act”–a call to do anything and if you do it with God, then God will bring good out of it.

I am a notorious overthinker. When I hear “Just do it” I get frustrated because there’s a million things I could just do, and the things I want to do are different from the things I need to do, and thinking helps me make sure that I am doing effectively–I could go on. When I am told “Just do it” my brain goes into overdrive and I don’t do anything.

Excursus: I don’t know if you all realize this, but I am a hypocrite. The main subject matter of this blog is spiritual, and I write what I hope are encouraging and helpful spiritual things and oftentimes fail to internalize them and live them out. I am a weak, sinful man, and I don’t say this out of faux humility–I write here more often than not the things I wish others would tell me, because I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to get to heaven, I know it takes work, and I know I would much rather you all join me there than for me to somehow find my way there on my own. In short: I am a work in progress. I suspect many of you reading this are, too, though no doubt you have a firmer grasp of who you are and what you want than I do sometimes. I write this because it is important context for how I think about motivation and how I think about living our beautiful, wonderful faith. And my thoughts may or may not line up with my words, and both of those may or may not line up with my deeds. It’s just important to point out. I don’t write because I know what I am doing, I am telling you my best guess and I’m hoping you will tell me if my ideas are good or bad.

The source of overthinking–my overthinking anyway–is anxiety and doubt. Am I doing the right thing? or Will it even work? To say Just do it is to ignore a whole encyclopedia of worries that, to my mind at the time, are of equal importance. The cure for overthinking is manifold, but three that come to mind right now are Confidence, Determination, and Discipline.

Confidence is the self-assured state about ones goals and ones ability to reach them. I don’t get anxious about going to the grocery store because I know perfectly well that I have the skills and know how and mental and physical capacity to go to the store, buy what I need to buy, execute the transaction, and go home. I do get anxious about interviews because it is not a sure thing that I have the skills and know how and mental and physical capacity to successfully complete the job. The contrary vice to Confidence is anxiety, because it causes worry about our ability to be accepted. It is a fear of rejection, at it’s root. Saying “Just do it” can help you push past the anxiety but it isn’t a cure for it. Familiarity breeds contempt–some people after pushing past their anxiety will find that there is nothing to fear and everything goes better than expected. Some people might push through and still find that they don’t get the job and still feel rejected. To them, “Just do it” hastened their arrival at rejection, and they will resolve to think more before they “just do” anything.

Determination helps move past this disappointed and rejected feeling stage. This is because determination is the belief that your goals will be achieved. Confidence says your goals are reasonable, Determination says your goals are achievable. It takes no determination to go to the grocery store because I am not experiencing doubt about it, I am not feeling rejected or worried by the goal of getting groceries. I do feel rejected or worried by the goal of getting that job, lets say. If I have just been informed that I did not get the job after that interview I was so anxious about, determination intervenes between me and disappointment and looks to the next interview. “Just do it” can help push past the disappointment and get to determination–it won’t cure disappointment but might help prevent feeling rejected and despondent.

Discipline is the name for this whole cycle of confidence and determination in the face of rejection and disappointment. Discipline is what people mean when they say “keep going”–just do the same thing tomorrow. You might be anxious, but push past it and have confidence. You might get rejected, but push past it and have determination. What helps make all of this possible is a specific goal that you are motivated to achieve, that acts as a sun just below the horizon, and a few more steps will get you sight of the dawn.

The sum of all your goals and ambitions ought to be Heaven. All your worries, disappointments, confidences, and determination should be in the direction of Heaven.

If you are not an overthinker like I am, this is a lot of words to say something very simple: Just do it. If you are an overthinker like I am, this is a lot of words that helps make sense of what “just do it” actually means. God willing it actually helps. God willing, it will actually help me, too.

AMDG

CCC – Three Hundred Articles

I’ve been creeping up on this milestone for a while–I always start thinking about it once I start adding L’s to my numbering scheme.

First credit goes to God for continuing to grant me words that and thoughts that provide some measure of entertainment or interest to you readers out there; His blessings extend to those of you whose writing informs and inspires mine here. All glory and honor are yours, O God, now and forever!

Second, credit is due to you, dear readers. You come here to see my thoughts, for whatever they are worth, and occasionally even find enough value in them to express your appreciation through a like or a comment–rarer still, to share it with someone else who you think would enjoy my meager intellectual offering. I am exceedingly grateful to you!

It is these that ever keep me going: That my brain has thoughts that spill out of my fingers onto the internet; and that you have found something worthwhile in them. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I will be offering prayers of gratitude for you and your intentions, whoever and wherever and whenever you might be.

This is a good opportunity as well to remind you and remind myself that I’m not doing anything new here. I mostly riff on greater minds writing elsewhere, and try to understand and assimilate their works. This blog exists for me to grapple with those ideas, and if there is any good fruit that comes out of that process it is certainly a happy accident, and speaks very favorably on the number of other blogs and sources I read and comment on and draw inspiration from, many of these being blogs that you, reading this, keep and maintain. I am very grateful for you then as a source of inspiration for this blog.

By way of a brief history, one hundred articles ago I had just changed the format to depart from regularly scheduled writing in order to focus on quality over quantity, and I have found myself much more relaxed about writing and I personally feel my writing has been much better for the change. Now, I feel an itch for a change again, and I’ve got an idea in the works but I need to let that idea mature a little bit before I make any announcements. Just want to keep you readers on the hook and looking forward to something new I’ve got percolating on low in the background.

Blog Start: 1 December 2018
100 Articles: 29 November 2019
200 Articles: 4 February 2021
300 Articles: 4 March 2022

Lets take a look at some stats as well:

I like trying to play connect-the-land-masses together with my readers. If you have a friend in Bulgaria, let me know–need to link up Greece and Turkey!

I don’t know how accurate this is now with VPNs become increasingly popular, but here are the top 10 countries by views. Thank you, all!

The grand adventure continues. Who knows where the Lord will find us in another one hundred articles, but I pray that the Lord will still find us together here. Onward, then, to CD!

Thank you, and God Bless you all.

AMDG

-Scoot

CCXCVI – Somewhere Between Dust and Dust

A blessed Ash Wednesday to you all!

Here begins 40 days of Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving. With all that is going on in the world, this is a perfectly timed reminder of the last things: Death, Judgement, Heaven, and hell.

A certain amount of memento mori is healthy and encouraged by our faith, but it is worth reflecting on the first things too. Specifically–we were formed out of clay. God made us out of nothing. I don’t know why that is striking me as profound today. It makes me think of the whole idea that “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”–we started as dust and can’t do much more than become dust bunnies in between our beginning and end. You can learn a lot about someone by learning where they come from or what their background is, and the common background to all of us is dust.

I hope this Lenten season is fruitful for you. As we look towards another Easter, and remember the hope in the resurrection–where miraculously our end-dust is perfected–may we first remember where we came from before we contemplate where we are going.

God bless you all.

AMDG