In sin, we become unplugged. When we refuse the givenness of life and withdraw from the present moment, we're left to wander the world undead. Zombie-like, we wander from one moment to the next with no other goal than to get somewhere else, be someone else, see something else--anywhere, anyone, anything other than what is given here and now. We're busy. We've got goals and projects, We've got plans. We've got fantasies. We've got daydreams. We've got regrets and memories. We've got opinions. We've got distractions. We've got games and songs and movies and a thousand TV shows. We've got anything and everything other than a first-hand awareness of our own lived experience of the present moment.
If we are not capable of being where we are right now, we will not be capable of being fully present when we arrive at some ostensibly more desirable destination later on. Thus unplugged, what good would heaven be?
The zombie-life of sin sets us wandering away from the present moment because it sifts everything through a screen of preference that inevitably filters out the absolute givenness of life itself. Spiritually undead, we see things only in terms of our own (often legitimate) preferences. Undead, we see things only in terms of our selves. How will this benefit me? How will this harm me? How might this current situation be leveraged for my own profit? If something doesn't show up as being to my advantage, then typically it doesn't show up at all. Absent the appearance of what fails to comport with my preferences, the fountain of life is squeezed back to a trickle.\
....
Sin refuses the unconditional givenness of life by imposing its own conditions.
The results are predictable. Striving after the gnat of pleasure, straining away from the sting of pain, we ignore the bulk of life and marvel at our own morbidity. Failing to be where we are, to receive what is given, to feel what we are feeling, we fantasize instead about what has not come, fret over what has already passed, and are bored to tears by the grace of what is actually present.
Fantasy, fear, and boredom: the hallmarks of sin.
Adam S. Miller, Rube Goldberg Machines, pgs. 11-12
Showing posts with label Mindset. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mindset. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
A common feature at work in all of this living is that things are given and things are recieved. Breath, rest, words, food, excrement, handiwork, sensations, ideas, bodies, and intentions--each of them, the very stuff of life, are given and each of them are recived. Life is this giving.
A guiding axiom: life is givenness
A theological version of this axiom: life is grace.
Grace names what comes as a gift. In short, grace names what is given. Or, more precisely, as Jean-Luc-Marion puts it, grace names the givenness of whatever is given and received.
Givennes names the giving and receiving that constitute life. It names our interdependence. It names a dynamic process of exchange, of giving and receiving, acceptance and conversion, that is always already dependent on things outside of itself. here, to be alive, to give and receive, is to be in an open relation of interdependence with the world for food, air, words, materials, sensations, and companionship.
...
The primary difficulty faced in approaching life in terms of grace is that grace so easily slips the knot of our attention. Our preoccupation with what is given and received so easily eclipses any awareness of its having been given, of its givenness. How easy it is to receive a gift from someone and, in light of its heft, shine, and appeal, forget that it is a gift. How difficult it is to keep its gifted-ness at the forefront of our attention.
Addressing ourselves to the givenness of life (and not just to what is given), will require a kind of focused attention that we don't generlaly employ. We will have to attend to the immediacy of life with a kind of awareness that we rarely bring to bear. We will have to shift down a few gears, ease off the gas, and be patient enough to linger with the given-ness of the present moment. If we are racing off to somewhere else, we will see only what is given and its givnness will fail to appear.
Adam S. Miller, Rube Goldberg Machines, pg. 4-5
A guiding axiom: life is givenness
A theological version of this axiom: life is grace.
Grace names what comes as a gift. In short, grace names what is given. Or, more precisely, as Jean-Luc-Marion puts it, grace names the givenness of whatever is given and received.
Givennes names the giving and receiving that constitute life. It names our interdependence. It names a dynamic process of exchange, of giving and receiving, acceptance and conversion, that is always already dependent on things outside of itself. here, to be alive, to give and receive, is to be in an open relation of interdependence with the world for food, air, words, materials, sensations, and companionship.
...
The primary difficulty faced in approaching life in terms of grace is that grace so easily slips the knot of our attention. Our preoccupation with what is given and received so easily eclipses any awareness of its having been given, of its givenness. How easy it is to receive a gift from someone and, in light of its heft, shine, and appeal, forget that it is a gift. How difficult it is to keep its gifted-ness at the forefront of our attention.
Addressing ourselves to the givenness of life (and not just to what is given), will require a kind of focused attention that we don't generlaly employ. We will have to attend to the immediacy of life with a kind of awareness that we rarely bring to bear. We will have to shift down a few gears, ease off the gas, and be patient enough to linger with the given-ness of the present moment. If we are racing off to somewhere else, we will see only what is given and its givnness will fail to appear.
Adam S. Miller, Rube Goldberg Machines, pg. 4-5
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