Can you prove any of the stuff youTo an exchange in the comments:
believe in? my son asked me & when I
said that's not how belief works, he
nodded & said that's what he thought
but he was just checking to make sure he
hadn't missed a key point.
Grandmère Mimi said...
What if I say I believe the story happened, but I can't prove it? What if I say I believe because it's a lovely story?
My evidence is in my heart, in my change from a heart of stone to a heart of flesh. My evidence is how I live my life because I believe the story. Not that I'm good or holy, because I'm not, but that I'm a far better person because I believe the story. The story changed my life. That is my evidence.
----
Murdoch Matthew said...
Everything in our minds is story -- we understand and remember through language. The lives we live, the things we do, these are reality. You've got that right.
I think that good people reflect credit on their traditions more than that they are products of the tradition. The best priest I ever knew, one who drew me and many others to the Episcopal Church by his example, was (I came to realize) a product of his German Lutheran youth. There are good people in all traditions -- and none. Whatever happened in the past happened -- NOW is the time we live in.
Thanks to Ann for the 'Adoration of the Shepherds'. I had already decided to use the painting in the post, but she confirmed my decision. Great minds....
I used the Boticelli Annunciation in my sermon yesterday. The expression on Gabriel's face is amazing, though one needs to look at the original to "get" it.
ReplyDeleteYes, Paul, you have to see the real thing, which I have, TBTG.
ReplyDeleteI love Botticelli's paintings of the Virgin Mary. She is so beautiful, and I love that he paints her wearing a wispy veil.
Is the lily a type of Christ or a symbol of purity? Or both?
What if I say I believe because it's a lovely story?
ReplyDeleteAMEN!
I think we need to reclaim ineffables like "loveliness" for our epistemology. I refuse to be a slave to empirical "facticity" for EVERYTHING.
Life is not a double-blind study (to "count, measure, and weigh" *). It's life. In all its loveliness (yes, and horrors). Joy and sorrows. Hope and fear. Ala Johnny Mercer, I CHOOSE to "ac-cen-tu-ate the positive"! :-)
* I put the Oxford Comma in there, just for you, Mimi. ;-p
JCF, I have no words to express my appreciation for your use of the Oxford comma. I know its use was sacrificial on your part.
ReplyDeleteYour comment is lovely.
Mimi, thanks for posting this lovely thought, which fell like a needed raindrop on the ground of my soul today - a thing often thought but ne'er so well expressed.
ReplyDeleteI treasure the Oxford comma, too. As all right-thinking people do.
Russ, thank you. I always feel quite vulnerable when I post words that come from deep in my heart.
ReplyDelete