Random thoughts on a summer evening

My dear one,

I am listening to Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances Suite No. 3 tonight, and it fits my mood perfectly...

Movement 1: Italiana

Movement 3: Siciliana

My dad posted some wonderful Tennyson lines tonight on Facebook:

        ...More things are wrought by pray­er
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life with­in the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of pray­er
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
(From Morte D'Arthur)

I spent a lovely afternoon exploring the state capitol grounds with a friend. After a yummy pizza supper, we chatted for a good long while on her porch, the summer breeze cooling us just enough as we sipped our chai tea. The more this friend tells me about her family members and relationships, the more burdened I become for her spiritual condition. In her false sense of religiosity she cannot see how Christ is the only possible answer to man's pride and selfishness. She says she prays for them that they would just see themselves honestly, and I tell her that only a true knowledge of God can enable anyone to see himself truly.

That's certainly what John Calvin explained in his Institutes (though much more wordily than I converse with my friend):

Man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself. For (such is our innate pride) we always seem to ourselves just, and upright, and wise, and holy, until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity. Convinced, however, we are not, if we look to ourselves only, and not to the Lord also—He being the only standard by the application of which this conviction can be produced. For, since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself. And since nothing appears within us or around us that is not tainted with very great impurity, so long as we keep our mind within the confines of human pollution, anything which is in some small degree less defiled delights us as if it were most pure… So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity.