We seem to sense that -- whether we conceive it as a divine being or as cosmic energy -- the Spirit working upon and within all creation is shaping it into order, harmony, and beauty, uniting all beings (some willing, but the majority as yet blind and rebellious) with each other through links of love, achieving -- slowly and silently, but powerfully and irresistibly -- the Supreme Synthesis.
Why is it always easier to anticipate God's wrath than to perceive God's joy? Ever
expecting to be shot, we're invariably dumbfounded by a grace we can't conceive...God plays rough before breaking into laughter.
The spiritual function of fierce terrain...is to bring us to the end of ourselves, to the abandonment of language and the relinquishment of ego. A vast expanse of jagged stone, desert sand, and towering thunderheads has a way of challenging all the mental constructs in which we are tempted to take comfort and pride, thinking we have captured the divine. The things that ignore us save us in the end.
The spiritual function of fierce terrain (in the apophatic tradition) is to bring us to the end of ourselves, to the abandonment of language and the relinquishment of ego. A vast expanse of jagged stone, desert sand, and towering thunderheads has a way of challenging all the mental constructs in which we are tempted to take comfort and pride, thinking we have captured the divine. The things that ignore us save us in the end.
~ from THE SOLACE OF FIERCE LANDSCAPES by Belden Lane
Special grace comes with drama and flair. We are rescued, singled out in a momentous act of boldness. BUT common grace falls upon the just and unjust alike. It strikes us as simply too ... ordinary.
~ from THE SOLACE OF FIERCE LANDSCAPES by Belden C. Lane
