ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
Blogger, Christian convert, general strange one. https://shapesinthefog.substack.com/
User ID: 3709
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
10d ago
7/10.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
10d ago
Who are some good people to follow in actual rad trad twitter?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
10d ago
Hah, do you mean DSL?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
11d ago
Oh I thought it was really different and based on the dnd system?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
11d ago
Should I get Baldur's Gate 3? Considering picking it up... but idk. I loved the other Divinity games.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
12d ago
Nope! Just said "Right the ship."
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
12d ago
Shit or get off the pot guys. All this sound and fury signifying nothing is just tedious.
Yeah very much agree here. I'm tired of Trump communicating and signaling as if he is going to take serious action, then... not doing it?! It's kind of the worst of both worlds in that it gets the opposition riled up while winning no victories for his base. I don't understand it.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
12d ago
Trump is calling for the arrest and trial of six Democrat lawmakers who posted a video telling the intelligence community not to follow unlawful orders,. The video claims that the current administration is threatening democracy and the constitution, and that the military "must refuse illegal orders."
Trump also apparently had another post that just said, "SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH."
This is the first time I have genuinely increased the probability of a real civil war breaking out, this is an absolutely terrifying escalation by both sides. While the Democrats were hinting extremely obviously that the military / intelligence community should basically pull off a coup, I also think that Trump hinting back that they should be executed is way beyond the pale.
Hopefully we're still in nothing ever happens land? I for one do not want to live through a civil war.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
13d ago
Travel a while, find interesting people online you connect with, talk to them, find a community, explore spirituality, therapy emotional work, etc.
Commit all in to solving your emotional issues! It's worth it though it will be hard.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
14d ago
Well said! I often enjoy your takes on the faith. I agree that affective piety is fun and we desperately need more of it.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
14d ago
Anybody else here because twitter etc is down?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
15d ago
Extremely different. Creation is inherently good, the Body is inherently good. Yes the world is fallen but Creation is not fallen. The body is tainted but still made in the Image of God. We will be resurrected in the body.
Your understanding is very at odds with the traditional Christian worldview.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
15d ago
Ok yeah there are flaws in my theory!
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
15d ago
Interesting point about the muslims and the reconquista. Thanks for adding that.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
15d ago
The real issue is the failure of religious education across the board.
People flock to New Age and Eastern practices because nobody told them The Cloud of Unknowing or the Philokalia existed.
They got either rational rules (conservatives) or emotional worship services (evangelicals/progressives), but not the deep contemplative center their souls actually want. Education is poor because apophatic prayer is really hard to scale.
Well yes exactly!!! I very much agree with this? So why did this happen? What do you mean it's 'hard to scale'?
But yes I very much agree that these traditions need to look back to history and realize what they're looking for is already within them.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
15d ago
This is wonderful! Yeah part of why I posted this is I wanted to be corrected. So why do you think contemplation and mysticism has become so de-emphasized in Western Christianity?
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
15d ago
I think any religion which claims the material world to be a fundamentally evil place we must escape from is wrong. I don't really care to litigate it to be honest, but perhaps the claim was too strong.
I'm going to sketch out a pretty broad and thin theory here, about Christianity and how the Protestant Reformation has had downstream effects on American politics for a while. Please feel free to poke holes in this, I'm really just spitballin'.
My basic idea is something like this: the Catholic church in Western Europe went way too hard enforcing the persecution of heresy, especially against mystics and those practicing contemplative-style prayer outside of monasteries, where they could be easily controlled. You see this especially in the persecution of the Cathars, which while their gnostic ideas were obviously wrong, I think the Catholic church made a huge mistake by not incorporating the obvious need for more direct mystical and experiential understanding of the faith amongst the laity, and disaffected factions.
Fastforward a few hundred years, and you have the Inquisition, the Protestant Reformation, and all the wars. Christendom in the West is basically fractured entirely, with the Protestants generally attracting folks that are more into mysticism, experiential acts of faith, and contemplation. Whereas the Catholic church tended to keep those focused on structured, ordered discipline and an explicit, rational understanding of the faith.
Ok, this is where the theory gets a bit out there. Personally I believe this split has continued into the modern day, with the modern progressive and conservative movements. I think that by and large the spirit of Protestantism has shifted away from explicit religion and into the more progressive, ideological wings of especially American, and increasingly world society. People on the left are by and large much more focused, in my experience, on experiential states, following the heart, and of course contemplative, mystical spiritual practice.
Because of the fact that the conservative branch of Christianity (even many Protestants, like the extreme Southern Baptists) continued to be staunchly against mysticism, ultimately they acted as a foil to the Protestants who wanted more of this mystical, experiential relationship with God. This is why the New Age/Buddhist/Eastern traditions are so appealing to folks on the left, because they are able to indulge freely in their mystical experience, without having any mean conservatives telling them they need to you know, get a job, and raise kids, and generally have structure in their lives.
Ultimately I think this is a major issue, and one at the core of the modern 'meta-crisis.' Taking a page out of Jordan Peterson's book, I think that much of especially human society can be seen as a dialectical tension between chaos and order. I think that the left I've broadly sketched here represents chaos, and the right represents order.
We desperately need both in various ways - we need order for structure, discipline, and to ensure the trains run on time, so to speak. We also need chaos for renewal, for fun and play and joy, and to make sure that authority doesn't get too corrupt, that people have a direct line to God, or if you're more secular, at least to a deep range of authentic human experience.
Overall I don't see the culture war rift being healed until we are able to conceptualize this breakage that has it's roots far in the past, and try to bring the two sides of the culture together. To help progressives understand that they need conservative structure, discipline and order, but also to convince conservatives that we need renewal, revitalization, and a check on corrupt authority.
As to how to do this, well, that's the million dollar question. I'm definitely curious if anyone has thoughts!
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16d ago
Yeah, everyone moving all the time is extremely annoying. I think it's a really horrid part of our culture.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16d ago
I have a best friend, and 7 great men total who are set to be my groomsmen. I have a lot of acquaintances at church and local dance stuff, also from the EA group I ran for a couple of years.
I spend probably 2-3 nights with friends each week, talk to my best friend most days on the phone for at least a half hour, though this is relatively new. It's pretty wonderful. I prioritize friendship extremely highly.
At this point I'm not trying to make more, just deepen and maintain existing friendships.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16d ago
I haven't experienced anything to this degree, but I also have felt scared to share personal stuff. It may sound lame but I do think some sort of therapeutic / emotional approach is warranted here. Or perhaps exposure therapy!
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16d ago
We were never actually kicked off. However, we'd had several warnings from the "anti-evil" squad, who ignored all our requests for clarification or further dialog. It was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, and Zorba eventually made the decision to pull the trigger. He might or might not have done this before it was necessary, but I doubt we'd have been allowed to remain much longer.
I think it was the right decision. I'm very proud that our little community survived the migration, despite all the nay-sayers at the time!
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16d ago
Just started Into the Silent Land by Martin Laird on Christian contemplation. It's great so far!
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
16d ago
Yes I very much agree. I want this place to live and the issues with loading speed and strange loading issues have been an issue for me as well.
Hmmm can only find the last on a cursory search? Strange. If you want to DM me your twitter I can just follow you. My name/pfp is the same over there as well.
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