St. Augustine on Stretching to Be Filled with the Beauty of God

**

Therefore, we are to see a certain vision, my brethren, "which neither eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man:"(10) a certain vision, a vision surpassing all earthly beautifulness, of gold, of silver, of groves and fields; the beautifulness of sea and air, the beautifulness of sun and moon, the beautifulness of the stars, the beautifulness of angels: surpassing all things: because from it are all things beautiful.

6. What then shall "we" be, when we shall see this? What is promised to us? "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." The tongue hath done what it could, hath sounded the words: let the rest be thought by the heart. For what hath even John himself said in comparison of That which Is, or what can be said by us men, who are so far from being equal to his merits? Return we therefore to that unction of Him, return we to that unction which inwardly teacheth that which we cannot speak: and because ye cannot at present see, let your part and duty be in desire. The whole life of a good Christian is an holy desire.(11) Now what thou longest for, thou dost not yet see: howbeit by longing, thou art made capable, so that when that is come which thou mayest see, thou shall be filled. For just as, if thou wouldest fill a bag, (1) and knowest how great the thing is that shall be given, thou stretchest the opening of the sack or the skin, or whatever else it be; thou knowest how much thou wouldest put in, and seest that the bag is narrow; by stretching thou makest it capable of holding more: so God, by deferring our hope, stretches our desire; by the desiring, stretches the mind; by stretching, makes it more capacious. Let us desire therefore, my brethren, for we shall be filled. See Paul widening, as it were,(2) his bosom, that it may be able to receive that which is to come. He saith, namely, "Not that I have already received, or am already perfect: brethren, I deem not myself to have apprehended."(3) Then what art thou doing in this life, if thou have not yet apprehended? "But this one thing [I do]; forgetting the things that are behind, reaching forth to the things that are before,(4) upon the strain I follow on unto the prize of the high calling." He says he reaches forth, or stretches himself, and says that he follows "upon the strain." He felt himself too little to take in that "which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man."(5) This is our life, that by longing we should be exercised. But holy longing exercises us just so much as we prune off our longings from the love of the world. We have already said, "Empty out that which is to be filled." With good thou art to be filled: pour out the bad. Suppose that God would fill thee with honey: if thou art full of vinegar, where wilt thou put the honey? That which the vessel bore in it must be poured out: the vessel itself must be cleansed; must be cleansed, albeit with labor, albeit with hard rubbing, that it may become fit for that thing, whatever it be. Let us say honey, say gold, say wine; whatever we say it is, being that which cannot be said, whatever we would fain say, It is called--God. And when we say" God," what have we said? Is that one syllable the whole of that we look for? So then, whatever, we have had power to say is beneath Him: let us stretch ourselves unto Him, that when He shall come, He may fill us. For "we shall be like Him; because we shall see Him as He is."


**

St. Augustine on Outside/Inside

**

"And ye have no need that any man teach you, because His unction teacheth you concerning all things." The teachings of the master from without are a sort of aids and admonitions. He that teacheth the hearts, hath His chair in heaven. Therefore saith He also Himself in the Gospel: "Call no man your master upon earth; One is your Master, even Christ."(4) Let Him therefore Himself speak to you within, when not one of mankind is there: for though there be some one at thy side, there is none in thine heart. Yet let there not be none in thine heart:(5) let Christ be in thine heart: let His unction be in the heart, lest it be a heart thirsting in the wilderness, and having no fountains to be watered withal. There is then, I say, a Master within that teacheth: Christ teacheth; His inspiration teacheth. Where His inspiration and His unction is not, in vain do words make a noise from without. So are the words, brethren, which we speak from without, as is the husbandman to the tree: from without he worketh, applieth water and diligence of culture; let him from without apply what he will, does he form the apples? does he clothe the nakedness of the wood with a shady covering of leaves? does he do any thing like this from within? But whose doing is this? Hear the husbandman, the apostle: both see what we are, and hear the Master within: "I have planted, Apollos haft watered; but God gave the increase: neither he that planteth is any thing, neither he that watereth, but He that giveth the increase, even God." (6) This then we say to you: whether we plant, or whether we water, by speaking we are not any thing; but He that giveth the increase, even God: that is, "His unction which teacheth you concerning all things."

**

Our Needs

**

"He comes to us breaking our expectations apart--just as he shattered the expectations of the Jews of his day; he even breaks our needs apart. If he only fulfills our needs, we remain our old selves."

--Arthur Vogel, The Jesus Prayer for Today

**

More Problematic

**

"If anything, life becomes more problematic, more mysterious, less under contorol, when interpreted by Christian hope."

Carol Zaleski, The Life of the World to Come

**

From "Listverse"--and like this root system, we are all connected beneath the surface

**

"'Pando' is Latin for 'I spread.' It is not one tree. It is about 47,000 quaking aspen trees, all growing from a single root system. That root system is spread over 106 acres, is about 80,000 years old, and experts have no idea when it will die. It weighs about 6,600 tons, making it the heaviest organism of any kind known to exist in the Universe. The experts are fairly certain that it has not flowered for the last 10,000 years, thus the end of the last Ice Age. Every time a wildfire has burned down all its trees, the root system has survived underground and started anew.

Each tree lives for about 130 years, dies, and is reconstituted through the roots and becomes a new tree elsewhere nearby. The trees reproduce by means of suckers, which are lateral roots sent out from each trunk until they sprout out of the dirt. These trees don’t look identical, but they have an identical genetic makeup, all spreading from one root system to form a single genetic individual, called a clonal colony. In fall, the leaves change to the color of gold brick and seem to glow in the sunlight."

**

"Suppose you didn't know what a door is"

**

Doors

Suppose you didnt know what a door is. That it opens, for
instance. It would seem a different part of the wall, thinner,
more resonant. A decorative rectangle set in the wall, an
embodiment of some geometrical mystery like the Golden
Section. It would seem tantalizing to someone trapped in the
room--a perverse, mean tease: the wall is thin here, soft, but
still unpassable. How little it would take to get through the
wall, yet you cant.

Suppose you didnt know what a door is, that it can open, that
its resistance defines the zone of least resistance, but that zone
requires a deft use of something learned, a knack, a skill:
twisting the knob and pulling. Or pushing. Even if you got as
far as turning and pulling, if the door were the kind that
opened outward, you'd still never guess, never get through.

Suppose all round us there are things like doors in things like
walls and we never knew.

--Robert Kelly

**

from Jack Gilbert's "Beyond Beginnings"

**

Is there a happiness
later on that is neither fierce nor reasonable?
A time when the heart is fresh again, and a time
after that when the heart is ripe? The Aegean
was blue just then at the end of the valley,
and is blue now differently.

**