Photo courtesy of Fr. Paul McKane
- “The way up and the way down is one and the same.” So reports Herakleitos of Ephesus from his spiritual experience. What ought a soul to do when it finds that it is not where it was before, neither up or down, but perhaps wondering on the ground? Is it perhaps necessary at times to take the same way up one has taken before? If so, then one must remember the way taken, and explore it yet again.
- We hear many answers, including in the Church. But the first question is: What is the question? Or what are the best questions to ask? How does a human being return to what Brother Lawrence called "the practice of the presence of God?" How does a human mind regain its openness to divine Presence? "That is the question."
- James Madison wrote in what became The Federalist that the first problem of politics is to govern the people, and that the second is intimately related to the first: the government must govern itself. Hence, “power must be made to check power,” “ambition must check ambition,” and so on: a balanced and limited government that checks itself from abusing its powers. The spiritual problem for every human being is similar, for what is government, but the soul of man written large? The first spiritual problem is for the soul to be open to, and immerse in, divine Presence; the second problem, intimately related, is for the soul to be ever aware of divinity beyond what can be experienced. Many err by being unaware of mutual participation in divinity; some err by assuming that their experiences constitute something like a comprehensive knowledge of God.
