to be exact

It's been a while since I've posted, almost three months to be exact. That's a long time.

Time the destroyer is also time the healer, said some wise person, well, Eliot to be exact.

Math and music can't happen without time, can they?

A lot of my thought has centered around Time these last three months. The concept of Eternity is probably the most frightening thing I know of.

I am in a consumer math class now. I have a midterm in two days, to be exact. I have done precisely one homework assignment out of a total of about 15. Which is why I am writing this post.

The next chapter is on Personal Finance. Well, that might be helpful, except for the depressing fact that at this point "personal" and "finance" are foreign words to me. Well, "personal" isn't a foreign word, but it certainly presupposes you know what a "person" is. I get confused about that sometimes. I guess it has to do with having a Chest--having Sentiment.

When I was in Oxford, Benedicta and I talked a lot about tears. Saints in the past have viewed them as very gracious things--the wellspring of humanity, if you like. When we weep we are alive. We are open to healing, to forgiveness.

But we can only weep when we are most nearly dead.

And what a death it is when tears that should come do not.

Should. Ought.
I have been thinking about these words a great deal lately. I have no idea in the world what to make of them. After reading the Abolition of Man, of course I see them as glorious things. We ought to obey the Tao.

But should and ought seem so alien to love. No one wants to be loved from duty. But we have a duty to love everyone. "Owe nothing to anyone but to love one another".

But with ought and should come so much guilt. I cannot see the difference between doing a thing out of duty and doing a thing out of guilt. I suppose it is just a matter of perspective; most things are I guess. Someone help me, if you can, if you know. Because I am trying to figure out what the wellspring of action ought to be. And I am not satisfied by the supposedly glorious objective Ought of the Tao. I can't be motivated by that.

I think I can only be motivated by something personal. By a Person, if you will. But not just any person. A person who loves me unconditionally and has sacrificial love for me. That kind of person I could do anything for, I think. And I could especially do it if that person were beautiful.

And I think the difference is this. When I'm doing something because I love someone, my thought is that I want to please that person because of how much he loves me and I love him. There is no guilt or ought or should about it.

Or is there? Won't I feel all the worse when I do fail? Probably.

Perfect love is said to cast out fear. Guilt is fear I guess.

Ok, I'm going to go do my math homework now. Not because I love Math. Sure, it may be the Nature of the Universe, but try as you might you are never going to be able to please and impersonal force.

"Whatever you do, do all for the glory of God." Now, that is like the most impersonal statement I have ever read. "The glory of God" blah blah blah. What does that even mean? Ok, so it's revealed in the face of a Person--Jesus Christ. But then, if I am going to do something, I am going to do it for the Person and not for his "glory". But then how can you separate Christ's glory from Christ?

I am driven mad by my need for "personal" relationship, but I don't really even know what that means. Except that I do sort of. But so imperfectly that I still freak out.

My friend Jim, my old neighbor across the street, always tells me I make life so much more complicated that it actually is. He is probably right. He says I should just let life come to me. He says I am the one in control of my destiny. My faith, he thinks, is only good for giving me principles for action. He always says I have a good foundation, by which he means I have Objective Values that I live by, that tell me what is right from what is wrong. But he says I can't wait for God to come down from the sky and tell me what choices to make. I have to make them myself. And supposedly my Faith, my Values, are trusty guides.

Right. I get a lot of that.
But if that's all there is to my Faith I might as well be Buddhist. I don't want just the TAO. I could care less about the TAO if that is all there is. I can't love the Tao and the Tao can't love me.

But what if the Tao were to take on flesh?

I really need to stop and go do math.