posted November 20, 2009 01:39 PM            

(life and the peach)

posted November 22, 2009 12:29 AM            

One, when I was 15 and on the verge of suicide, I had a vision of Freya that was intense, who told me that I needed to let the forge temper me and prepare me to stand next to Her during Ragnarok. She even "said" (very hard to describe, she more sung wordlessly but I knew what She meant) that she'd "sung" me into existence for this purpose. (Btw, some of those past lives other than being the pirate included being a gythia, shamaness, sorceress of Freya.)

I didn't even know much about Norse mythology at all back then. I found that enough had the "wind through the World Tree" affect them in similar ways (visions, etc), so I do believe it was something from the Collective Unconscious. But if there's a Ragnarok, I don't know what it is, or why Freya "sung me into existence" and what she thought I could do. But if there is any truth to that vision, then I would say it gives the meaning of my life. And maybe we're all being tempered.

But...and this goes to the 2nd thing I wanted to add:

posted November 25, 2009 07:27 PM              

Through diverse circumstances and experiences, the soul is polished and purified, until it is fit to reflect the glory of God, who created it. This is what happens. But not for any reason. Nonetheless, if there were a meaning to life, surely, this would be it. In that sense only, we may agree to call it the meaning of life.

However deeply we plumb the so-called "whys and wherefores" of material and abstract phenomena, mapping out the apparent roots and purposes of things, we never really arrive at any actual reasons. All we ever learn is "how". We ultimately perceive the intersection of various laws, and how they conspire to support and promote particular phenomena, but without the intellectual and moral gratification we seek. What we discover is only that nothing, -- no argument, no design, and no promise -- could ever justify the rape, killing, or starvation of a child; or the countless other horrors we see every day under the sun. But, that, despite this lack of purpose or reason, it is still possible to make our peace with God.

The love of God is capable of dissolving all that the intellect cannot resolve. It's not so much that one's questions are answered by this love, but that, gradually, one's grip on the questions relaxes, and they cease to be an issue. Somehow, even the most righteous indignation is forgotten in the experience of God's love.

But don't think for a moment that the true love of God is an opiate, which numbs us to the sufferings of our fellow sentient beings. Rather, it is that fullness of affectionate concern, which empowers and motivates us to share our love, and our entire selves, with the world.

The end does not justify the means,
and, yet, "all's well that end's well".