Transcribed by Tom Ryan from a recording
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMY68vNcLT8
On a material matter…I mean the towels
are disappearing too fast. I don’t mean that they’re being taken away or
anything, it’s just they go too fast…and we got…we apparently have enough…given
at the beginning of the week. So what…so the best way to handle a towel
situation is to…start with (chuckle)…ex novices don’t laugh, folks…start with
two…see…and instead of throwing one into the…into the basket everytime you take
a shower, have two towels…the one you sort of get good and wet…and the other
you finish the job see…and the second one isn’t too wet. Put the wet one on the
line and dry it out. So you’ve always got one towel dry a maybe on the line and
the other one on the line if necessary. And you throw one in the basket a week,
or two in the basket a week, somethin’ like that. I mean you don’t…the thing is
those towels are getting completely used up (chuckle) just being washed, see? I
mean you use, you take a shower and you dry yourself once with the towel which
uses it a tiny little bit and then you send it to the laundry (chuckles) and
get used up real good getting washed then it comes back and you use it just one
little bit again, see? So I think there are ways and means of…handling the
situation. Well now I gotta, this is going to tie into…course I gotta a lot of
interesting…stuff tucked away but I gotta…get down to some…main points. Ah…what
is the perfection of the monastic ideal? How did they do it? What was their
approach, I mean how did they go about this business of…ah…of a…of a…saying how
you were going to live a monastic life? What did they do? Anybody? Ah…Timothy.
TIMOTHY: They lived it.
They went and lived it and then what…then
they thought…how has it been lived, see. And then they always came up…like for
example…in these desert fathers stories that we got there…somebody comes to
saint Anthony and says…What am I gonna do, he says. Don’t ask me! He says.
Well, I’ll tell you three ways people have done it…one did this and another did
this and another one did that. You go try this or try somethin’ else…See…well…this
is the way the monks have approached the thing, see. So in other words you go
into the possibilities that exist. And that’s absolutely the only way to do it.
And we are here and everywhere…although pretty much most places stymied by this
business of you see …of being face to face with an idea and all the time
butting our heads against the idea and never making any kind of a…of a…junction
between the idea and the reality, see. And not starting with the reality and
not respecting the reality. The way it usually goes is this…It’s the old…we ask
ourselves the question what is God’s will? And we ask it wrong. See, we ask it…we
don’t don’t ask that question as Christians. See. We ask that question as
payment…what we are asking…see…what is my fate, see. This is the way we
habitually ask ourselves the question what is God’s will? In other words, we
assume that God is something that’s pre-determined…see…That it is…that God has
set up there in a little secret office, see…And he reached into the filing
cabinet and he pulled out the file and looks in it and says ah boy (chuckles)…and
archangel Michael, come over here…what’s the plan for alpha? And archangel
Michael (shrugs)…ahhhh well bababa…well…so there’s this secret plan…and here’s
alpha, he don’t even exist yet, see…and then he comes into life and he reaches
the age of reason and he says to himself, I gotta find out the plan…and so this
is what we all do and we spend our life looking for this secret plan which we
possibly can never find out. We try all sorts of gimmicks for finding out the
secret plan, see. So we go to some…ah…somebody with a magic answer. And we say,
well now the authorities of the Church, they gotta magic answer, or if they
know God’s plan they…he’s fitted them into the plan some such way so…they’re
oracles, see. And you go to somebody and you ask them what is God’s will for
me? And with the utmost profundity, he looks at ya and says…You are to be a “bridgetine”…you
are the first of the bridgetine branch of men, see…and like you’re a woman
hater and all…absolutely allergic to femininity…see… you never got along with
your mother or sister…and you say oh Lord this must be it all right ‘cause I
hate most of ‘em now already… But this is absolutely arbitrary. See, this isn’t
the way life is supposed to be. God’s will. When it comes to the ten
commandments. I mean when it comes to the ten commandments, things are
determined beforehand, see. There are certain things that are determined
beforehand…thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal and those things, thou
shalt not and thou shall…this and that. But when it comes to contingent
affairs, where there’s a matter of choice…what is God’s will? And how do ya
find out God’s will? For I mean…you wanna consult somebody…but not as an
oracle. How do you determine God’s will in the matter of vocation? It’s the
question of freedom, see. God has given us…ah…in the pagan situation, see…you
look for fates. Ah, you getta sheep, you kill ‘em, you cut ‘em open and look at
the entrails and then you get an expert in entrail examination and he looks at
em…and gives you an ambiguous answer…and if you put the comma in the wrong
place…and if it comes out wrong he can always say well that comma was in the
wrong place, shouldn’t a been in there, there was this…that was your fault,
see. A Christian is free. And the will of God in the work of the Christian is
the work of the Christian and God working together, both freely. This is the
work of two freedoms working together. So that your vocation isn’t something
that’s in a filing cabinet in…Heaven. That is pulled… kept secret, then whipped
out at the last judgement…says, ya missed, ya didn’t guess right. But what it
is…your vocation is…anything in life, is an invitation on the part of…on the
part of God, see… which you’re not supposed to guess and you’re not supposed to
figure out, it’s something you work out by free response. And what are the
indications of the invitation? See. You have to take them in their existential
facts. They’re there or they aren’t, see. In other words, what happens is you
judge byt the concrete facts, the realities that you run up against…in life…see.
And these things are manifestations of what God has planned, and they’re manifestations
of what…His whole idea which isn’t a plan beforehand, so much either, for we
talk…we talk…God really has this certain point of view…has no plan. In the sense
of a plan beforehand because there’s no before and after with God. He works it
out…as he goes along. Except that it’s all one with him, there’s no past
present and future….with Him…see. And we think in terms of having a plan and working
it out because that…it’s humanely looking at it and when a wise human being,…normally
thinks before he acts…and there’s nothing wrong with that, see. I’m not saying
that you’re not supposed to think, see. This question of an inexorable will,
completely determined beforehand which we…have to meet up to…is not the idea of
God’s will, but of fate. See. God’s will is free and our will is free. And God
is inscrutable as far as he is free…because you don’t know how your brother’s
gonna act with his freedom. So of course, you don’t know how God’s going to act
either…with his freedom. What are you going to do about that? Do you have to
know beforehand what God…is going to do with his freedom? Where do ya, where do
ya fit that in? I mean supposing He…decides to blast you with a thunderbolt or
somethin’ ? If he wants to why…what about it?
A MONK: that’ where faith, hope, love…
Faith, and where love…hope, the
theological virtues come in. And there you put things on a completely different
plain. See. Theological virtues deal with persons and not with essences, see.
When you’re dealing with essences you’re dealing with what’s fixed beforehand.
When you’re dealing with people you’re dealing with what’s free. So when it
comes to faith hope and love you set God as one who loves you freely. And you
trust his love. See. And you trust that his freedom is going to be the freedom
of one who loves. And you trust love. And it’s a totally different dimension.
And when you’ve got…you don’t ask for love to guarantee his plans for the next
five-hundred years. See. Love is…love! And you let it be love, that’s all.
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