Tag Archives: enlightenment

Daily Riches: The Deadening Effects of the Familiar (Leonard Sweet, G. W. F. Hegel, Brian Aldiss, Marcel Proust, and James Finley)

Posted on by under Awareness, awe and wonder, Mindfulness, Mysticism, The Sacrament of the Present Moment

“What is familiar is not known.” Hegel

“The paradox of the eyes is that the closest things to you are the hardest things for you to see. We don’t know the familiar. Something can be so familiar you can’t see it. …The greatest example of not being able to see the familiar? Nazareth. When the people of Nazareth saw Jesus, they saw Joseph’s son, whom they had known for a quarter of a century. When the lepers and the outcasts saw Jesus, they saw so much more. [We need to] make the familiar strange. …[and] overcome the deadening effects of the overfamiliar by reframing familiar things in unfamiliar ways. This is especially important when biblical stories are so familiar they become cozy and have a known feel. …As a literary device, defamiliarization was formulated by the Russians years ago in the concept of ostranenie, which translates literally as ‘denumbing’ and was designed as a distancing device to help the reader see something deadeningly familiar in a totally new light. By telling something from an oddball perspective that doesn’t fit preconceived notions, by writing elliptically, epigrammatically, the writer skews the view to give a new window on the world.” Leonard Sweet

“To be made uneasy is the beginning of enlightenment.”
Brian Aldiss

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes.”
Marcel Proust

“Though seeing, they do not see.”
Jesus in Matthew 13:13

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is over-familiarization with what you experience keeping you from “awakening … to God is who already there?”
  • How could you use “a distancing device to … see something deadeningly familiar in a totally new light? (For instance, could you sit at street level with a homeless person?)
  • Have you been blessed to be “overtaken by God” in the midst of familiar things?

Abba, “May each of us be so fortunate as to be overtaken by God in the midst of little things. May we each be so blessed as to be finished off by God, swooping down from above or welling up from beneath, to extinguish the illusion of separateness that perpetuates our fears. May we, in having our illusory, separate self slain by God, be born into a new and true awareness of who we really are: one with God forever. May we continue on in this true awareness, seeing in each and every little thing we see the fullness of God’s presence in our lives.” James Finley

For More: Nudge: Awakening Each Other to God Who Is Already There by Leonard Sweet

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: An Enhanced, Enlightened Life Through Desolation and Affliction? (Malcolm Muggeridge, Richard Rohr & Catharine von Schlegel)

Posted on by under Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, Stillness, Waiting on God

“Contrary to what might be expected, I look  back on experience that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful, with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained.” Malcolm Muggeridge

“What the saints and mystics say is that some event, struggle, relationship, or suffering in your life has to lead you to the edge of your own resources. There has to be something that you by yourself cannot understand, fix, control, change, or even begin to deal with. It is the raw experience of ‘I cannot do this.’ All you can do at this point is wait and ask and trust.” Richard Rohr

“Be still, my soul; thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul; the waves and winds still know
His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below.

“Be still, my soul, though dearest friends depart
And all is darkened in the vale of tears;
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrows and thy fears.
Be still, my soul; thy Jesus can repay
From His own fulness all He takes away.”

Hymn lyrics by Catharine Amalia Dorothea von Schlegel, composer: Jean Sibelius (“Finlandia”)

“Be still, and know that I am God….” Psalm 46:10

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is what Muggeridge and Rohr say believable to you? Can you think of ways your life been enhanced by affliction?
  • Can you trust God to be faithful in the future as he has been in the past? that “all now mysterious shall be bright at last?”
  • What is “taken away” from us creates a kind of spaciousness. Can you wait for God to fill that space, rather than attempting to fill it yourself?

Abba, I will still my soul. I will be still before you. I want to know what the waves and winds still know. I want to know in my deepest self that you are God.

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For More: Then Sings My Soul by Robert J. Morgan

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”