Who of Us Can Live with the Consuming Fire?

Who of us can live with the everlasting flames?

From Isaiah 33 come more descriptors of living a holy life, of who can dwell on the heights.

He who practices virtue and speaks honestly,
who spurns what is gained by oppression,
brushing his hands
free of contact with a bribe, stopping his ears lest he hear of bloodshed,
closing his eyes lest he look on evil.

He shall dwell on the heights,
his stronghold shall be the rocky fastness,
his food and drink in steady supply.

Then from Psalm 101 are the avowal of a good leader who sings to the Lord, who walks in the way of perfection. What does he vow?

To walk with blameless heart; not set whatever is base before his eyes;
hate the ways of the crooked and not have them be friends;
disown the wicked and keep the false-hearted far away;
bring to silence the man who slanders his neighbor in secret [ah, detraction!];
never to endure a man of proud looks and haughty heart;
accept not into close range one who practices deceit--and no one who lies.

The faithful may dwell within; those who walk in the way of perfection shall be friends.
Each morning the wicked shall be silenced; those who do evil shall be uprooted.

My oh my. The hermit has desired to put these in print ever since reading them last week in the Morning Prayers. Perhaps the reason the hermit writes at all is because reading and speaking tend to solidify within the soul when also written and then viewed with the eyes and pondered with the eyes of the soul.

At one level, the wicked and those who do evil could very well be one's vices. The virtues could be one's friends: the faithful in the land of the soul.

The hermit dares nest within the Sacred Heart, and is not able to live there, not really, but to nest there and be burned by the consuming fire. The very dreams convict the soul and bring to surface the pitch, causing the faults to burn all the more intensely. Then the day begins with more steps up the holy mountain: not near the summit, but burning along the way upward.

What the Carthusian writes in the book on the interior life is so true. God created us to glorify Him; He created all else to be of assistance to all else, to glorify Him--the good experiences, the negative ones, all people, animals, nature, thoughts, words--all of His creation is to be utilized to help the soul glorify God.

This takes mindfulness, of not having many distractions, of living a rule of life, of eating the Body and and drinking the Blood of Christ, for His food and drink are in steady supply.

It takes courage to keep all the negatives out of one's house--the house of body and the house of soul.

The hermit was trying to explain to someone who was irritated with a phone call and responded for that person to call back after he had accomplished what might happen. Wanted to be called when it actually did happen. Here is an example of how one can stop to consider how God desires us to glorify Him through an annoying phone call. The person could tell the one calling that prayers would be offered so that what he hoped would be accomplished would in fact come to fruition. In that way, God is glorified because a trifling phone call becomes one of prayer: the person receiving the call promises to pray for the good of the other, and the other is reminded that prayer is important in our daily aspirations and goals. Really, the prayers' outcomes do not matter as much as the turning of the negative reaction to a good, for all concerned, means glorifying God through goodness and prayer.

In this call as well as one other, the hermit listened to detraction. The hermit is praying and striving to become more aware of the hermit's complicity in detraction and also in downright detracting. These evildoers (the vices) must be rooted out! In both calls, the hermit said it would pray for those involved; and the hermit did pray and pray and pray, off and on in the day and night. The prayer of specifics became broadened to include like siituations of the past and those that would occur in the future--for God's realm is timeless. Prayer moves into His realm and thus is timeless and can be utlized by God in that sphere of everlasting love.

The hermit had a dream of being hypocritical, of doing a wrong beneath the surface, knowing it, but not enough fortitude to cease. The hermit is not in fact involved in the example within the dream, but perhaps the hermit sees another application, and it has to do with once more settling down to the vocation, to greater simplicity and selflessness. The hermit does know that God will give the fortitude, that it is simple enough to cease complexity and a certain lack in discipline in a surface area. Does the hermit exhibit proud looks?

The hermit is also praying about the writing. It is not concise particularly, and just the ramblings of a hermit soul's daily rumblings and stumblings. Perhaps a public venue is not best for the hermit. The hermit shall ask yet another "hermit question" of the spiritual da and of the confessor. The writing could be poured out in a private journal. And long-hand would certainly train the hermit to brevity!