Sunday, December 28, 2008

Intellectual Participation II

...(continued from here)
This long exploration of questions and answers began from a curiosity and progressed during research into needing to fill a spiritual vacuum, a blank, lifeless open mental wound. This mental need for understanding, for resolution, for closure requires intellectual participation. Reading, interacting with others over the subject, listening to other peoples views, positioning the mind in various states of conclusion, measuring logic and reason for each view with fresh, open and objective vision.

During that period of investigation, each discovery led to more hunger for details, corroboration, deeper insight. My intellectual passion was fed by these discoveries and given the amount of time past the event and significant volume of information available each year going by (some valid and some erroneous), I was able to make determinations of fact and find a path of documented events that revealed the most consistent version of truth, means and motive.

This is a parable of my faith journey years ago. My religion from birth was attacked and wounded in my intellect, due to my lack of intellectual, behavioral and spiritual participation. I was defenseless accept to point out the obvious (IE. 1 Billion Catholics cant be wrong) which was fruitless to the attacker and myself. I had to start engaging my intellect in reading Scripture, Doctrine and Protestantism. Thats where participation led to understanding and a presence of the Holy Spirit became evident personally. Once the personal relationship began, a personal conviction was mine to own, use and grow.

Feed Revision Call

I was forced to correct a feed error to display podcasts in itunes, and doing so may have lost some subscribers, please resubscribe if I have fallen off your RSS or itunes radar, or let me know if you notice any other problems.
-Peace

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Christmas Catholic Carnival

The Christmas Catholic Blog Carnival can be found here. Merry, Merry.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Intellectual Participation I

If I had a dime for every time I tried to solve the Kennedy assassination between my 2 ears, I could buy a Hummer as a spare ride. No matter what angle I pondered with comprehensive documentation,(I have a library on the event, been to the scene, studied evidence, etc.) I could find no 100% cause fully supported to the exclusion of any other marginally close second. It remains a mystery wrapped in a reality result.

There was, for me for many years, a challenge to be quenched intellectually in the study and commitment to ultimately reach a solid conclusion. Not just a perps name, an engineered motive and identifying players in that as well. The problem is there is just to much evidence with a figure like Kennedy. Too much outside motive, too much public exposure and too many strategic possibilities. When I finally admitted this will remain an enigma, that resignation contradicted my own innate intellectual comfort level. What I was left with having was a faith or a hope in a theory that was supported by the largest amount of evidence. That faith or hope became a belief that Oswald was tasked by underworld leaders to commit the act. I had no knowledge that this was the path of Kennedy's death, all I had was evidence. I cannot ever know for certain, in the absence of pulling the trigger myself, but I can believe based on it.

The belief or faith that this theory held the truth is then mine to hold. I possess it and in spite of my wavering intellectual comfort level, the faith is enough to get me onto the next mental challenge. But it did not. What I discovered in this final thought and in faith was that we humans feel we must reach tangible conclusions or be doomed to exist in a partial vacuum of spiritual fulfillment. My spirit wanted to find those deathbed documents and cancelled checks signed by Jack Ruby that the underworld funded the whole shebang, but its just not there. I have faith, based on research and evidence that this was the case.

This self-discovery of a faith based belief is close to that which I hold for Catholic Doctrine. Patristic research reveals Christs Church. The Bible reveals Christs Church, all 73 books. Secular History validates Christs Church. The Patriarch of Constantinople acknowledges Christs Church is Catholic.

I have no knowledge of this. I was not a witness to the incarnation of God, yet I have a measure of spiritual fulfillment as a result of intellectual participation.
... (Continued in this Post)

Priest Concert on PBS

As a follow up to my post on the Priests who landed a $2MM Sony recording contract, their Concert with full Orchestra is playing nationally on PBS fundraiser shows. Link in title and check your TV guide for local airings.