To be still is to gather moss (as the old stone proverb goes) and to be silent is to understand why gathering moss is important. I love the idea of being one with the place you live. Since being a child I've been drawn to books like Anne of Green Gables; to be a person so at one with your location it is included in your name must be wonderful! I seem to be revisiting childhood ideas and books (!) a lot lately...I wonder if regression is part of the process of reunion?
I do think this process is easier where God's (and not man's) creation can be seen and felt around you. Running to the hills worked for me!
12 years ago I read somewhere about developing the patience of lichen. Still working on that.
My wife and I have been living in a 600 sqft cottage in the woods at the edge of the boreal forest in Northern Minnesota for the last two years. Calming, allowing for quiet, silence. Even with the occasional motorized vehicle going down the road, the location allows for quiet.
Originally I sought separation from the "culture wars" to recover and return to fight, much as Dreher seems to suggest, or to continue the war from behind defensive walls. What I have found is that the "culture war" is superfluous and should just be walked away from. The better solution to a bad influence is to live a better solution. That is my hope and plan, as well as offering refuge as needed.
Hi Jack, after the exhortation to silence I tried in vain to suppress my urge to comment. You bring up multiple trains of thought I have been on recently, too.
1- you know how much I've thought about fleeing. It might be abandoning the people in my life. I am ready to get going asap if my husband wants to but he has his doubts and his own timeline emerging. We talk a lot about abandoning people... these people are not perfect friends, they are not bosom brethren... they have disappointed us and they are capable of betraying us. But they are the people in our lives and they would be sad. I imagine the monks and desert fathers all had to make this same choice. It has to be a confidence that the Father's will is leading, or else it is just a selfish seeking of refuge in the hills.
2- I like this quote, "They promoted a way of life that reflects a reversal of all ordinary social values and expectations." This is what I have been saying to my husband... that I want to get away from the decadence. It is almost impossible to live according to the values of simplicity and quiet contentment in this culture. There is a constant demand for us to participate in the affluent lifestyle that we are surrounded by and opting out generates frustration and misunderstanding by well-meaning family.
3- I was reading my book The Wisdom of the Enneagram again. There are things in type 4 and 5 that speak to me with startling clarity. This type is so programmed to see deep, ominous insights where others do not. We are so typically concerned with a big-picture knowledge and grand ideas while neglecting the practical and humble day to day responsibilities. After reading that I could see myself as this unbalanced person -- Mom of 5 who should be focusing on homeschooling, organizing the pantry, watering the veggie garden, repairing the fence to keep out rabbits, starting fall crops from seed, starting a new batch of bread... my point is that I have plenty of projects that I've been passionate about in the past that could still use my energy but I am preoccupied with fleeing to the hills at this moment. Is the world really this urgently different from what I thought or am I sabotaging my real life based on some kind of personality quirk that causes me to overthink things? I don't expect you to answer that but you, like me, are dreaming of the terminator robot and feeling that there is a darkness so unprecedented as to legitimate this level of response. Could we be victims of our cerebral and iconoclastic personality types? Reading that book made me think it's possible.
4-Where is the desert now? This question is huge. I've been looking at Maine because it is the nearest place that has some wilderness and cheap land. I can't tell without spending more time there how different it is or isn't from where I am now. I can tell enough to know that lots of the same problems exist there but are less advanced in severity. It isn't a pristine desert. It might be a significant improvement. I in no way have the time or energy to travel around extensively looking for the right place to go. There seems to be wealth and cell towers everywhere that there is food. I'd love to hear other's thoughts about where the desert is these days.
I have this one other silly question that I always wonder about. If living in a literal desert, such as the monastery you are at or the fathers in Egypt, where does one's food come from? And if it comes from fertile land and is trucked into the dessert to feed people doesn't that kind of negate the desert experience? Those old time monks must have brought food or was it miraculous sustenance?
Today July 20 is the feast day of St. Arsenius. I have just read a short biography of this desert father in “Lives of the Saints” (July-December) Vol. 2 by Fr. F.X. Weninger, available free for download on Archive.org.
St. Arsenius served the Emperor Theodosius and also taught his sons. However, tired of the world, he ran away from the imperial court and fled to Egypt at age 65. The older hermits doubted that he could lead a life of great austerity but he astonished them by fasting even more rigorously, and sleeping on a rocky bed. Stories of hermits like St. Arsenius seem so remote, strange and repellent to us yet Emperor Theodosius and his successor, his son Arcadius, sent emissaries to search for St. Arsenius and beg him to return. Can you see today any of our world leaders or billionaire celebrities begging a holy monk to join their households and teach their children? This tells me that our era has become so depraved and devoid of the sense of the supernatural that it will accept the worst abominations.
I don’t think that it is easy today to “flee to the desert” with a group of other lay people and form a community unless the primary goal of the community is union with God. That’s the reason why monasteries exist over a thousand years after they were established but the hippie communes of the 1960s fell apart within a few years. There has to be a higher goal other than one’s self and happiness.
Almost everyone is far too attached to the things of this world. For this reason, St. Arsenius (and monks in general) meditated frequently on death. There’s nothing like a deep meditation on death to detach oneself from material things, including family and friends.
Jul 20, 2022·edited Jul 20, 2022Liked by Jack Leahy
Have you read Max Picard's "The World of Silence"? If not, I think you would like it. Currently, I find "desert spirituality" most amenable. I have a copy of the four volume Evergetinos by my bedside and read from it constantly.
I do think that you are right: if there is a hill, mountain, island, etc. to escape to, we should escape, but it is of utmost importance to find some silence internally prior to that escape or the escape will be tainted. Thomas Merton goes into this in detail in his final book "The Inner Experience". Lawrence also wrote an allegory about just this called "The Man who Loved Islands." We should all try to escape to the desert, but first we must find our inner desert and learn to dwell there here and now.
In regard to your note # 7 and concluding question. A few people and I attend and mutually facilitate a Zoom meeting every afternoon between 4:00-5:00 that consists of nothing more nor less than sharing silence for an hour. A pithy evocation of this practice from Barbara Brown Taylor goes, "Silence is ecumenical. It precedes dogma. It is incapable of crusades. In silence, people who do not speak the same language may yet act together, creating a tableau that talks louder than words."
Most of us, as you realize, will never be able to retreat to a monastery outside short visits. How does silence become a part of one’s life in the city?
For me, the example of Jesus waking up early and going out to pray in the early morning provides a model. “In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.” Mark 1:35.
If a person dedicates a good part of their waking hours to silence (say two-four hours) it becomes easier to go back into the busy world and serve others. Prayer also helps one confront the controversy that will inevitably meet the person who seeks to know and follow God.
Hmm, Jesus just said to go in a room and close the door and pray to the Father who is there in secret, it says draw near to God and he will draw near to you and in Ephesians it says that Jesus has given us access to the Father by the Spirit in the here and now. I regard the monastic movement as unbelief in this simplicity through Jesus of easy access and closeness to God as a gift. Though scriptures can be quoted in support, this monastic quasi Buddhist system, eight fold path of works of gradual contemplative attainment is not presented as a system in the New Testament. I am sorry that getting close to and knowing God has to be such a process for you, not my experience nor that of people and family I know. I think especially of my grandmothers.
Interesting. Personally, I would love at least a week of solitude. Having a career and young family, it would feel like the richest kind of decadence, not deprivation haha.
On a deeper level….
I would have to be truly desperate to retreat *with* my family into a wilderness. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but it would be a last step. A large part of this comes from growing up in a family which while close and loving, was isolated from most of our contemporaries and their culture. There was value in that experience, but also deep hurt and loneliness. I don’t want that for my children. I’m not so convinced of my rightness and wisdom as to pull them away from other people.
What I would rather do is seek out positive experiences of community, stable traditions, well thought out belief systems, and hope that teaches resilience.
I think however, that it’s good to have an “inner retreat,” a place within ourselves that can’t be easily reached or co-opted. Maybe it is formed by a story, an experience, a place or a combination of all. I read another article that talked about the cyclical experience of going in and out of exile. I thought it quite profound. Part of coming into my adult self has been recognizing when I’m going into exile: that “things fall apart” feeling. Inevitably (so far!) the exile comes to an end and I’m back “home,” with added experience and confidence. But the exile part is terrifying, every time. It really is an act of faith to live through it.
“Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).
People in general (many Jews amongst them), with a poor sense of what spirituality actually means, take sentences like this to mean that, OK, so far our physical conditions in this world have not been very good, but we'll be able to improve them by incorporating this new "spiritual" teaching or gift or promise, whatever that may be. But "the city that is to come" should be taken to mean our eternal residence: when, freed from the bondage of our false mind and body identification and firmly situated in our true spiritual identity, we live an eternal life of loving exchanges with God and His devotees. This is a gift that is always available to us, but few are willing to leave everything behind and actually go the distance. It usually takes a lifetime of tenacious dedication; which doesn't mean it's less of a gift, but our own involvement is much required.
The tension arising from both of those interpretations is the story of the Gospels, and also the story of our own life; because all of us are struggling to fix a goal for our spiritual practices according to what prophets and saints actually teach, and not to our own distorted, materiallistic version of their legacy.
It's nice to hear from you again, Jack... take care!
Wow, thank you for this. It's a wonderful piece. I've just read it twice and intend to do so again tomorrow.
I think you have given some indication of what the Arsenios Option would be, though, or at least differentiated it from the Benedict Option. It's interesting to me, as you've articulated some ideas that I have also been trying to percolate.
If the Benedict Option is about a cultural retreat, and almost all of Dreher's writing is in a cultural vein, I think the Arsenios Option could perhaps be described as a more complete retreat. I want to say 'inward', but that has associations with modern therapeutic modes of thought that I think miss the mark.
Perhaps if the Benedict Option is about tactically admitting that certain modes of cultural power are no longer available, then the Arsenios Option is about denying that they were ever beneficial in the first place? It feels to me that each practitioner focussing on their failings rather than directly seeking to mend the world is a central point.
That would also explain why I am so very bad at it, unfortunately.
“Something is waking up around us—yes, something dreamt of over the millennia.”
There’s a true and ominous tenor in those words, and they reminded me of the opening sections of Paul’s book, The Wake (I have finally gotten around to starting on his trilogy). Your comment on the peasant from a thousand years ago makes me think of his protagonist in 1066, a profoundly grounded fellow if there ever was one, until the roots of all he knows get ripped up. And I feel what is going on now, what your dream is touching on, is the same uprooting, only much worse, partly because we cannot see it as clearly. Partly, perhaps, because some people actually seem to like it.
“The more silence the better”. Far be it from me to debate with you on this. You’re the one in the monastery! But I’m going to say something horrible and left-brained, something that would get me kicked out of any Zen hermitage in about two seconds. Silence, I think, needs a focusing structure in the form of sacred words and sacred imagination. Notice I didn’t say focus “point”. I’m not talking about mantras (they’d kick me out of the ashram too). I’m talking about meanings, both the local meaning that shapes our mind in prayer and also the meaning that is beyond this world—the spirit of God. Not all silence is helpful, if it tears down or blocks the possibility of accessing true meaning. In that sense, more silence can be worse, depending on the context around it. I think this perspective is a bit closer to an Orthodox view, at least based on my rudimentary understanding.
Hi Jack - once more, so much I appreciate and resonate with internally. I kind of find that quite hopeful.
Re "That peasant knew—concretely and directly— what was happening around him. I doubt that is true for most of us anymore. We live increasingly in the abstract and far-flung. In so living, we are largely deluded, spiritually and otherwise. That we are often quite erudite in our delusion is hardly compensation. " Yes. I was in a church context recently where folk were talking about 'living more sustainably' - but this brought up for me a question no one was asking - why are are we living unsustainably? FWIW I think it is because we have lost touch with Reality - our lives make no sense in terms of the created order of things. [ A slight digression - I have been involved in conversations as a Brit, around Monarchy which someone called 'illogical in the modern world' - I disagreed with the use of the word Illogical. As I put it, a Car is utterly illogical. It is only because the modern world is one of alientation that it appears not to be . . . whereas Monarchy (Gen 1) is somehow woven into Reality - another discussion!]
So our lives are out of touch - our consciousness is utterly blind to how things Really are. And We are also out of touch with one another . . . we say touch but we don't even hear one another . . . rata tat atat is all we hear as our fingers hit the keys . . . our touching is several degrees away from reality.
I then go onto suggest that our perception fo God is therefore illusory and that Deep Silence is The Way. The Way Home - to our Primordial Root. apologies for rambling out loud. God bless you - I hope you are well. Blessings, E
To be still is to gather moss (as the old stone proverb goes) and to be silent is to understand why gathering moss is important. I love the idea of being one with the place you live. Since being a child I've been drawn to books like Anne of Green Gables; to be a person so at one with your location it is included in your name must be wonderful! I seem to be revisiting childhood ideas and books (!) a lot lately...I wonder if regression is part of the process of reunion?
I do think this process is easier where God's (and not man's) creation can be seen and felt around you. Running to the hills worked for me!
12 years ago I read somewhere about developing the patience of lichen. Still working on that.
My wife and I have been living in a 600 sqft cottage in the woods at the edge of the boreal forest in Northern Minnesota for the last two years. Calming, allowing for quiet, silence. Even with the occasional motorized vehicle going down the road, the location allows for quiet.
Originally I sought separation from the "culture wars" to recover and return to fight, much as Dreher seems to suggest, or to continue the war from behind defensive walls. What I have found is that the "culture war" is superfluous and should just be walked away from. The better solution to a bad influence is to live a better solution. That is my hope and plan, as well as offering refuge as needed.
Hi Jack, after the exhortation to silence I tried in vain to suppress my urge to comment. You bring up multiple trains of thought I have been on recently, too.
1- you know how much I've thought about fleeing. It might be abandoning the people in my life. I am ready to get going asap if my husband wants to but he has his doubts and his own timeline emerging. We talk a lot about abandoning people... these people are not perfect friends, they are not bosom brethren... they have disappointed us and they are capable of betraying us. But they are the people in our lives and they would be sad. I imagine the monks and desert fathers all had to make this same choice. It has to be a confidence that the Father's will is leading, or else it is just a selfish seeking of refuge in the hills.
2- I like this quote, "They promoted a way of life that reflects a reversal of all ordinary social values and expectations." This is what I have been saying to my husband... that I want to get away from the decadence. It is almost impossible to live according to the values of simplicity and quiet contentment in this culture. There is a constant demand for us to participate in the affluent lifestyle that we are surrounded by and opting out generates frustration and misunderstanding by well-meaning family.
3- I was reading my book The Wisdom of the Enneagram again. There are things in type 4 and 5 that speak to me with startling clarity. This type is so programmed to see deep, ominous insights where others do not. We are so typically concerned with a big-picture knowledge and grand ideas while neglecting the practical and humble day to day responsibilities. After reading that I could see myself as this unbalanced person -- Mom of 5 who should be focusing on homeschooling, organizing the pantry, watering the veggie garden, repairing the fence to keep out rabbits, starting fall crops from seed, starting a new batch of bread... my point is that I have plenty of projects that I've been passionate about in the past that could still use my energy but I am preoccupied with fleeing to the hills at this moment. Is the world really this urgently different from what I thought or am I sabotaging my real life based on some kind of personality quirk that causes me to overthink things? I don't expect you to answer that but you, like me, are dreaming of the terminator robot and feeling that there is a darkness so unprecedented as to legitimate this level of response. Could we be victims of our cerebral and iconoclastic personality types? Reading that book made me think it's possible.
4-Where is the desert now? This question is huge. I've been looking at Maine because it is the nearest place that has some wilderness and cheap land. I can't tell without spending more time there how different it is or isn't from where I am now. I can tell enough to know that lots of the same problems exist there but are less advanced in severity. It isn't a pristine desert. It might be a significant improvement. I in no way have the time or energy to travel around extensively looking for the right place to go. There seems to be wealth and cell towers everywhere that there is food. I'd love to hear other's thoughts about where the desert is these days.
I have this one other silly question that I always wonder about. If living in a literal desert, such as the monastery you are at or the fathers in Egypt, where does one's food come from? And if it comes from fertile land and is trucked into the dessert to feed people doesn't that kind of negate the desert experience? Those old time monks must have brought food or was it miraculous sustenance?
Thanks for your patience with me!
Clara
Today July 20 is the feast day of St. Arsenius. I have just read a short biography of this desert father in “Lives of the Saints” (July-December) Vol. 2 by Fr. F.X. Weninger, available free for download on Archive.org.
St. Arsenius served the Emperor Theodosius and also taught his sons. However, tired of the world, he ran away from the imperial court and fled to Egypt at age 65. The older hermits doubted that he could lead a life of great austerity but he astonished them by fasting even more rigorously, and sleeping on a rocky bed. Stories of hermits like St. Arsenius seem so remote, strange and repellent to us yet Emperor Theodosius and his successor, his son Arcadius, sent emissaries to search for St. Arsenius and beg him to return. Can you see today any of our world leaders or billionaire celebrities begging a holy monk to join their households and teach their children? This tells me that our era has become so depraved and devoid of the sense of the supernatural that it will accept the worst abominations.
I don’t think that it is easy today to “flee to the desert” with a group of other lay people and form a community unless the primary goal of the community is union with God. That’s the reason why monasteries exist over a thousand years after they were established but the hippie communes of the 1960s fell apart within a few years. There has to be a higher goal other than one’s self and happiness.
Almost everyone is far too attached to the things of this world. For this reason, St. Arsenius (and monks in general) meditated frequently on death. There’s nothing like a deep meditation on death to detach oneself from material things, including family and friends.
Have you read Max Picard's "The World of Silence"? If not, I think you would like it. Currently, I find "desert spirituality" most amenable. I have a copy of the four volume Evergetinos by my bedside and read from it constantly.
I do think that you are right: if there is a hill, mountain, island, etc. to escape to, we should escape, but it is of utmost importance to find some silence internally prior to that escape or the escape will be tainted. Thomas Merton goes into this in detail in his final book "The Inner Experience". Lawrence also wrote an allegory about just this called "The Man who Loved Islands." We should all try to escape to the desert, but first we must find our inner desert and learn to dwell there here and now.
In regard to your note # 7 and concluding question. A few people and I attend and mutually facilitate a Zoom meeting every afternoon between 4:00-5:00 that consists of nothing more nor less than sharing silence for an hour. A pithy evocation of this practice from Barbara Brown Taylor goes, "Silence is ecumenical. It precedes dogma. It is incapable of crusades. In silence, people who do not speak the same language may yet act together, creating a tableau that talks louder than words."
Most of us, as you realize, will never be able to retreat to a monastery outside short visits. How does silence become a part of one’s life in the city?
For me, the example of Jesus waking up early and going out to pray in the early morning provides a model. “In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.” Mark 1:35.
If a person dedicates a good part of their waking hours to silence (say two-four hours) it becomes easier to go back into the busy world and serve others. Prayer also helps one confront the controversy that will inevitably meet the person who seeks to know and follow God.
Hmm, Jesus just said to go in a room and close the door and pray to the Father who is there in secret, it says draw near to God and he will draw near to you and in Ephesians it says that Jesus has given us access to the Father by the Spirit in the here and now. I regard the monastic movement as unbelief in this simplicity through Jesus of easy access and closeness to God as a gift. Though scriptures can be quoted in support, this monastic quasi Buddhist system, eight fold path of works of gradual contemplative attainment is not presented as a system in the New Testament. I am sorry that getting close to and knowing God has to be such a process for you, not my experience nor that of people and family I know. I think especially of my grandmothers.
Interesting. Personally, I would love at least a week of solitude. Having a career and young family, it would feel like the richest kind of decadence, not deprivation haha.
On a deeper level….
I would have to be truly desperate to retreat *with* my family into a wilderness. Not saying it couldn’t happen, but it would be a last step. A large part of this comes from growing up in a family which while close and loving, was isolated from most of our contemporaries and their culture. There was value in that experience, but also deep hurt and loneliness. I don’t want that for my children. I’m not so convinced of my rightness and wisdom as to pull them away from other people.
What I would rather do is seek out positive experiences of community, stable traditions, well thought out belief systems, and hope that teaches resilience.
I think however, that it’s good to have an “inner retreat,” a place within ourselves that can’t be easily reached or co-opted. Maybe it is formed by a story, an experience, a place or a combination of all. I read another article that talked about the cyclical experience of going in and out of exile. I thought it quite profound. Part of coming into my adult self has been recognizing when I’m going into exile: that “things fall apart” feeling. Inevitably (so far!) the exile comes to an end and I’m back “home,” with added experience and confidence. But the exile part is terrifying, every time. It really is an act of faith to live through it.
“Here we have no lasting city, but we are looking for the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14).
People in general (many Jews amongst them), with a poor sense of what spirituality actually means, take sentences like this to mean that, OK, so far our physical conditions in this world have not been very good, but we'll be able to improve them by incorporating this new "spiritual" teaching or gift or promise, whatever that may be. But "the city that is to come" should be taken to mean our eternal residence: when, freed from the bondage of our false mind and body identification and firmly situated in our true spiritual identity, we live an eternal life of loving exchanges with God and His devotees. This is a gift that is always available to us, but few are willing to leave everything behind and actually go the distance. It usually takes a lifetime of tenacious dedication; which doesn't mean it's less of a gift, but our own involvement is much required.
The tension arising from both of those interpretations is the story of the Gospels, and also the story of our own life; because all of us are struggling to fix a goal for our spiritual practices according to what prophets and saints actually teach, and not to our own distorted, materiallistic version of their legacy.
It's nice to hear from you again, Jack... take care!
Wow, thank you for this. It's a wonderful piece. I've just read it twice and intend to do so again tomorrow.
I think you have given some indication of what the Arsenios Option would be, though, or at least differentiated it from the Benedict Option. It's interesting to me, as you've articulated some ideas that I have also been trying to percolate.
If the Benedict Option is about a cultural retreat, and almost all of Dreher's writing is in a cultural vein, I think the Arsenios Option could perhaps be described as a more complete retreat. I want to say 'inward', but that has associations with modern therapeutic modes of thought that I think miss the mark.
Perhaps if the Benedict Option is about tactically admitting that certain modes of cultural power are no longer available, then the Arsenios Option is about denying that they were ever beneficial in the first place? It feels to me that each practitioner focussing on their failings rather than directly seeking to mend the world is a central point.
That would also explain why I am so very bad at it, unfortunately.
The Fantastic Monastic Podcast
This is a cross-post from the Abbey of Misrule monthly Salon, but it connects with my earlier comments on sacred imagination and so I thought I’d post the link here too--a new translation of the Dream of the Rood. https://thelampmagazine.com/2022/05/27/the-dream-of-the-rood-a-new-translation/
As I mentioned in my Abbey post, the accompanying essay is almost as beautiful as the poem.
“Something is waking up around us—yes, something dreamt of over the millennia.”
There’s a true and ominous tenor in those words, and they reminded me of the opening sections of Paul’s book, The Wake (I have finally gotten around to starting on his trilogy). Your comment on the peasant from a thousand years ago makes me think of his protagonist in 1066, a profoundly grounded fellow if there ever was one, until the roots of all he knows get ripped up. And I feel what is going on now, what your dream is touching on, is the same uprooting, only much worse, partly because we cannot see it as clearly. Partly, perhaps, because some people actually seem to like it.
“The more silence the better”. Far be it from me to debate with you on this. You’re the one in the monastery! But I’m going to say something horrible and left-brained, something that would get me kicked out of any Zen hermitage in about two seconds. Silence, I think, needs a focusing structure in the form of sacred words and sacred imagination. Notice I didn’t say focus “point”. I’m not talking about mantras (they’d kick me out of the ashram too). I’m talking about meanings, both the local meaning that shapes our mind in prayer and also the meaning that is beyond this world—the spirit of God. Not all silence is helpful, if it tears down or blocks the possibility of accessing true meaning. In that sense, more silence can be worse, depending on the context around it. I think this perspective is a bit closer to an Orthodox view, at least based on my rudimentary understanding.
Hi Jack - once more, so much I appreciate and resonate with internally. I kind of find that quite hopeful.
Re "That peasant knew—concretely and directly— what was happening around him. I doubt that is true for most of us anymore. We live increasingly in the abstract and far-flung. In so living, we are largely deluded, spiritually and otherwise. That we are often quite erudite in our delusion is hardly compensation. " Yes. I was in a church context recently where folk were talking about 'living more sustainably' - but this brought up for me a question no one was asking - why are are we living unsustainably? FWIW I think it is because we have lost touch with Reality - our lives make no sense in terms of the created order of things. [ A slight digression - I have been involved in conversations as a Brit, around Monarchy which someone called 'illogical in the modern world' - I disagreed with the use of the word Illogical. As I put it, a Car is utterly illogical. It is only because the modern world is one of alientation that it appears not to be . . . whereas Monarchy (Gen 1) is somehow woven into Reality - another discussion!]
So our lives are out of touch - our consciousness is utterly blind to how things Really are. And We are also out of touch with one another . . . we say touch but we don't even hear one another . . . rata tat atat is all we hear as our fingers hit the keys . . . our touching is several degrees away from reality.
I then go onto suggest that our perception fo God is therefore illusory and that Deep Silence is The Way. The Way Home - to our Primordial Root. apologies for rambling out loud. God bless you - I hope you are well. Blessings, E