{"id":3139,"date":"2011-01-02T23:16:41","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T22:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/?p=3139"},"modified":"2011-01-03T01:19:57","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T00:19:57","slug":"spiritual-peeping-tom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/2011\/01\/02\/spiritual-peeping-tom\/","title":{"rendered":"Spiritual peeping tom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“You’ll understand the dazzling world of grownups one day, too.” Let’s hope so.<\/em><\/p>\n

In reading St Teresa’s \u00c2\u00a0book The Interior Castle<\/em>, I came to the chapter introducing the Fifth Mansions. After reading a bit of that, I decided to stop. This is beyond me. I feel like a peeping tom looking in at other people’s love life, in this case their love life with God. For now, I think it will do me little good, because I don’t have the experience to relate to it. This is the life of true saints, and I am not one of those. \u00c2\u00a0I am more like a tourist, hoping to become an immigrant, into the spiritual realms. I am not worthy to look at such a thing as the soul’s union with God, much less write about it.<\/p>\n

I am quite familiar with the phrase “pearls before swine”. It is a wonderful ‘get out of debate free’ card for us Christians, letting us get the last word and insult others in a most pious manner. \u00c2\u00a0But now I have become the swine. \u00c2\u00a0Or the dog, in the same verse by Jesus, the dog to which one should not give the holy. This is a level of holiness to which I am like a dog. So I slink away – at least for the time being.<\/p>\n

Oh, and on my mobile phone Kindle, that’s two dots out of six. (Meaning I got through a third of the book.) That’s pretty humiliating. But probably also pretty accurate, or even generous.<\/p>\n

I should stick to things that are relevant for where I am, I think. \u00c2\u00a0Then perhaps later, if there is a later, I may begin to understand the dazzling world of true saints.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“You’ll understand the dazzling world of grownups one day, too.” Let’s hope so. In reading St Teresa’s \u00c2\u00a0book The Interior Castle, I came to the chapter introducing the Fifth Mansions. After reading a bit of that, I decided to stop. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3139"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3144,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3139\/revisions\/3144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chaosnode.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}