The old story factored relevant, as pig pens are pig pens no matter how a person gets there. I certainly found myself in the same disgusting state as the wayward son, barely surviving with only scraps of nourishment fit for swine. The thing that I and the prodigal shared was the ineptness that took us into our groveling conditions but also the ham-fisted incompetence toward getting out. For the out of control youth, the face in slop was preceded by the low-paying hog-feeding job, and prior to that was a kind of hysteria. Yes, the Bible teaches that the boy’s waste of substance with riotous living caused an emotional trauma for him. His unfortified ability to control things was lost and the bottom was dropping out of his big strategy. In his soul’s lowest of the low, nothing of his self-made mess was faceable for him now. For me, the…
Tag: <span>faith</span>
“Man is pushed by drives but pulled by meaning, and this implies that it is always up to him to decide whether or not he wishes to fulfill the later. Frankl “Man, which thinks and perceives, could not be called in Scripture, “heart,” unless the will were the peculiar central feature in a man, which precedes perception,” Franz Delitzsch. “The thing in the abstract, or the final sub-stratum in every phenomenon, is the will.” Arthur Schopenhauer. “choice is will where knowledge enlightens it.” “Meaning-fulfillment always implies decision making.” “The effort which goes into the exercise of the will is really effort of attention; the strain in willing is the effort to keep the consciousness clear, i.e., the strain of keeping the attention focused.” Rollo May, “Intension is a stretching toward something.” “Meaning has no meaning apart from intention.” “Each act of consciousness tends toward something, is a turning of a person toward…