AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
A Soldier wants freedom from oppression, tyranny. A Theologian wants freedom from the world, attachment. Freedom from tyranny is the rind. Freedom from attachment is the fruit within. Both provide personal, communal, national, and civilizational nourishment. God is the sweetness of the juice of the fruit that is freedom.
We begin with three observations, two by the Classical Greek Philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus and one by the Contemporary American Philosopher David R. Graham:
War is the father of all things.
One does not step into the same stream twice.
Nothing is renewable, everything is recyclable.
My philosophical career — my wife calls it mystical philosophy — centers in revelatory opportunities common phenomena are. Occasions have power to speak the truth. Every occasion does, even occasions of the grotesque and the repulsive. This phenomenon always has fascinated me by its tremendous moment.
Nothing is outside the truth, and the truth is inside everything. Whatsoever. The sweetness of God permeates the sensible world.
What do you make of the juxtaposition of these words: Soldier Theologian Freedom? They are kin to Duty Honor Country.
How do those words interact in your mind? What sparks fly between them? What lights flash on or off as you roll those words around in your intellect, tasting their sweetness and/or bitterness? Do hands reach across from one to another, over, under, around, and through each other? Do feet, holding, kicking, beckoning, rejecting? Are bonds formed or broken between some or all of those words, in your mind that is? Do some of those words sort of jump up and down in an animated way, do all of them, some more than others, in your mind that is?
Words are pictures (Greek ideo, from which we get English idea). What pictures come to mind when you think about these words individually and as in the same room together, so to speak?
What do you make of this observation by John McPhee: The summit of Everest is marine limestone.?
Where reality and life are concerned — and they are one and the same, actually — the goal is the thing. The technical word for this is telos. It means purpose, aim, target, objective ahead, mission to accomplish.
A Soldier has a goal: to bring secure happiness (freedom) to his or her family and countrymen. A Theologian has a goal: to taste the intense sweetness (freedom) of God and bear the burden of others’ pilgrimage to the same sweet tasting. History has a goal: to invite labor through which one earns a foretaste, preliminary and partial, yet a foretaste for sure, of Rest (Freedom) in the Divine Person.
A Soldier and a Theologian share a common goal: Freedom.
He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch,
To gain or lose it all.
James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose
Βασιλεία του Θεού
Related 1: Docta Ignorantia LXXXV: The Relationship Between Clergy And Soldiers
Related 2: If You Want ‘Renewable Energy, Get Ready to Dig
Mark David Hall: How Reformed Theologians’ Commitment To Self-Rule And Resisting Tyranny Helped Form America