"… Since that time, I have been serving God simply, in humility and faith. Out of love, I try not to say, do, or think anything that might offend Him. My only request is that He does whatever He pleases with me.Wow. My first thought? "It sounds like a eunuch wrote that."
I feel unable to express what is going on inside me right now. I'm not anxious about my purpose in life because I only want to do God's will. I wouldn't even lift a straw from the ground against His order or for any other motive than love for Him. Pure love of Him is all that keeps me going.
I have given up all but my intercessory prayers to focus my attention on remaining in His Holy presence. I keep my attention on God in a simple, loving way. This is my soul's secret experience of the actual, unceasing presence of God. It gives me such contentment and joy that I sometimes feel compelled to do rather childish things to control it."
No joke.
I'm thankful to God for a lot of things. I thank God for my salvation, that I may be found in Christ, that he has redeemed a sinner and adopted him as a son. Beyond that there is an endless list of other things I'm grateful for. Baseball is one of them.
Baseball has been my salvation from the hell of mystical thinking. I abhor mysticism and "soft" philosophies. I hate their language use which includes but is not limited to images and various types of metaphors. I detest vague and ambiguous language. There is no phrase that will send me into a rage like "...putting God in a box." It is a statement without a referent, an absurd arrangement of grammatical symbols. I refuse to use metaphors in serious situations. Metaphors are toys. With the things that are important to me, with love, with faith, with life, I do not use toys. I do not use metaphors.
I don't have the work in front of me but I remember that Nietzsche called Thomas a Kempis' "Imitation of Christ" as possibly the most effeminate and decadent work that he had ever read. Amen, brother man. Amen. I refuse to be emasculated.
I do not like monks. I do not like cloisters. I do like their beer though. I tried trappist ale and it was pretty good.
But I really like Jesus. He strikes me as the anti-mystic. He had his times of solitude and prayer, but was the anti-recluse. He went to the people. Forgive my metaphorical language here but He assaulted the gates of Hell with a bloody, splintered, urine and feces stained cross where criminals hung to die. And he battered down those gates and drew out a host of captives. He was a person who did not just feel things, but he went and did things. He gave of himself. He gave of himself to people that were too stupid and blind to understand the greatness of his person. In his distress he was able to say "Father, not my will but your will be done."
Hero. That is a real man.
Jesus would've made a great center-fielder.
Baseball has taught me a lot. It gave me the categories that I needed to think in and approach pain. Mystical writings drip with sentiment and feeling. "Oh God! Oh God! Waaa Waaa Waaa! God, heal me! God, my life is a barren abyss of swirling darkness! God, you are my light! Waa! Waa! Waa!" I'm not advocating playing through all injuries and hurts. Carlos Beltran playing with a sore quadriceps muscle this year probably cost the Mets the division. (Actually there's a lot that cost them the division race, but a healthy Beltran might've made the difference.) I find no grit, no toughness, no endurance in mysticism. I find that in baseball. And I find that Scripture has called for endurance in my soul.
So God? Thank you for baseball.
In Part 2, I hope I can tackle some of the following:
* Why I believe mysticism emasculates a man.
* Gender differences and the practices of faith?
* Retractions
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