A Faith Walk

There is a route I take when I go for a walk, simply for exercise or whenever my heart is burdened or stricken with pain: from home through Smith Road to Bryan Park and back. I named this a faith walk because my heart roars with cries, complaints, despair when I go out but becomes calm and renewed on the way back. Sometimes, I can't even breathe with pain. About the time I arrive at and walk around the park, my soul is calling on God for help. And...God always finds and heals me.

Today, I found myself repeating, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want." I was praying God help me remove all those negative voices and thoughts, protect and purify my heart. Suddenly, I realized we should not poison our hearts with despair, sorrow, and hatred no matter how much we are hurt. On my way back, my heart was light and at peace. Another faith walk that renewed my spirit in God.

Lord, light my path with your truth and grace.
Let me serve you with a joyful heart.

Being humble

A Korean writer once said in an interview: When you are lowered bottomlessly, then you see God."

How come we see God, the Most High, only when we are lowered and humbled?
Is it because we do not know how needy we are until we are lowered?
because we realize the lack inside? our foolishness and weakness?
In darkness, we seek God's light;
In pain, we cry out for help;

And God is "the one who sees me"...

Zizek: The Puppet and the Dwarf

"The Jewish God is the Real Thing of Beyond, while the divine dimension of Christ is just a tiny grimace, an imperceptible shade, which differentiates him from other (ordinary) humans. Christ is not 'sublime' in the sense of an 'object elevated to the dignity of a Thing,' he is not a stand-in for the impossible Thing-God; he is, rather, 'the Thing itself,' or, more accurately, 'the Thing itslef' is nothing but the rupture/gap which makes Christ not fully human.

We rise again from the Fall not by undoing its effects, but in recognizing the longed-for liberation in the Fall itself. ... for Christianity, the Fall is not really a Fall at all, but 'in itself' its very opposite, the emergence of freedom. ... The task is thus not to return to a previous 'higher' existence, but to transform our lives in this world. In Saint Thomas' Gospel, we can read: 'His disciples said to him: "When will the resurrection of the dead take place, and when will the new world come?" He said to them: "That (resurrection) which you are awaiting has (already) come, but you do not recognize it."' This is the key 'Hegelian' point of Christianity: the resurrection of the dead is not a 'real event' which will take place sometime in the future, but something that is already here--we merely have to shift our subjective position."

Zizek meditates on the ontological significance of the Fall and the Resurrection here, undercutting the easy distinction between this world and a world to come. Faith as transforming our lives here and now, as realizing God's promises... We are called to live as a truly reborn in God. But...are we?