Spike is Best

There was a kind of "no-brainer" that hit me the other day. And isn't that the way with no-brainers? We don't think about them. Anyways, this no-brainer that a priest said to me was that sin eats away one's resolve.

It got me thinking about resolve as a fruit of the free will. And that got me thinking about how free will is an end in itself. It is the one distinguishing attribute of our being, as rational creatures. As one's being is an end in itself, one's free will is an end in itself. It is precious in God's eyes. You will not cease to have free will in eternity. Those who behold the face of God will be incapable of choosing to be apart from him, not because they lost their free will, but because they will be so incorporated in love.

Resolve is not forcing yourself into being strong-willed. That's more than likely just setting yourself up for a fall. It is more a relinquishment from choosing something that will harm your free will. The commands of God have as their end the keeping of your free will intact. The end of sin, the result of doing whatever, whenever, and however as you please, is the enslavement of your free will. Hence, sin eats away one's resolve.

To know in every moment that at any moment you can fall - that is something worthy.

*

That got me wondering about fundamentalism. I wonder if fundmentalists in their heart of hearts abhor free will? It's like the devil has come up to them (as an angel of light) and obsessed their minds with this notion that if things were just like so, and if things were just like this and just like that, then people will all be properly ordered. In other words, if we only just disallow for that minor nuisance of free will, we can bring about the Great Restoration.

That's Saruman for you.

*

"...with the measure you use it will be measured back to you."

Easy to understand. Easier to forget.

In other words, it's one of those no-brainers.

The most powerful thing in The Lord of the Rings is the mysterious providence by which mercy - exercised by Frodo and Samwise towards Gollum - works to the success of their mission, which otherwise would have been a catastrophe, rather than the Euchatastrophe it turned out to be.

Not that Frodo and Sam (or Bilbo for that matter) were fully aware of what they were doing by exercising mercy, as though they had it all figured out beforehand. Indeed, the form which their decisive mercy takes is mere pity. That's part of the messiness of mercy, and the refusal to dominate and manipulate someone's free will.

Think about how Sam, right there at the summit of Mount Doom has Gollum at the point of his sword, just after Gollum has attacked them again and full well proven his treachery: he's an absolute threat to their mission at its most vulnerable stage: all sense points to stabbing Gollum - even if to incapacitate him - in order that Frodo can bring the ring to its destruction.

When they exercised mercy, it was measured back. Mercy - and we are in a time of great mercy - really and truly is the working of your salvation. It's no joke.

*

Consider how you came to be in the Vine. You go back far enough down the long branching line of people, you are bound to come across some nearly broken off branch where the sap still flowed through an inch width of intact cambium, by which the sap eventually flowed to you.

"Do not judge lest you be judged."

That's for your stance towards everyone - but good grief, to have to be warned against it concerning the Vicar of Christ! How much more radical will the measure be measured back to you when your judgement involves the Holy Father!

Stone by stone, brick by brick, word by word, you are building up and fortifying the tower of your own condemnation.

You are in that tower, and that tower will fall in on you, and not on anyone else.

Go and learn the meaning of mercy.