I am one who daydreams. I am one who looks both backwards and forwards. The life of popcorn compulsivity I renounce, though I have good friends who seem to get along fine this way. My central role models in life are hermits and monks. There was a period of time in our Western Civilization when this was very, very normal. One of the motives for creating this blog, is to somehow, in my own little way, serve to get people acquainted with the characteristics of day to day life in the Middle Ages. Writing this blog fits well into my own daily life for now, and I'm hoping that it may prove interesting to those who might stop in and check it out.
Has anyone heard of the contemplative life? It is a form of life in which daydreamers like me end up. So I live in a community of hermits. Our belief: Nothing truly matters as much as being recollected, and living a thoughtful, prayerful life. Out of this flows depth of consciousness, empathy and compassion toward others, sensitivity of conscience, and attentivity to symbols. It is this attentivity to symbols in the world, in life, that was a characteristic of the Middle Ages, before the advent of so great a complexity of civilization as we have presently. In outward form, the Middle Ages were simple times, when people more generally abided in a thoughtful, far sighted and prayerful manner. (Yes, fallen human nature was present then too!) This blog, which may take many directions, here at the outset flows out of my love and appreciation of the formal character of the Middle Ages, when men and woman lived beyond this world, a world which was known to be passing away.
The label "Mushroom Cloud Soup" is being applied generally to our contemporary world in all its complexity, and the seeming end toward which it is tending. It is not a description meant to condemn individual persons, but rather one which evaluates and renders a personal judgement upon the general situation of things modern. To me, life has become in many ways less humanly enriching than it once was, though there are yet many opportunities to live well and lovingly.
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