The most difficult purifications for man are perhaps the purifications of the memory and imagination. These dislodge him from the past and the future where he always has a tendency to take refuge as an escape from the sorrows of the present hour, and as a way of bursting out of his limits even while remaining still human. Thus he seeks to expand his spiritual domain and to satisfy, at least by way of extension, his thirst for the infinite. ‘Fire of Contemplation’
Father Thomas Philippe in his books ‘Fire of Contemplation’ and ‘The Contemplative Life’ expands and elevates. I want to quickly touch on several thoughts this morning during reading. The above quote is remarkably perceptive when applied to contemplatives with a creative and romantic nature. The artist is one who tends to rend himself away from the moment, sentimentally and passionately divested in the past or immense possibilities fantasized within the future. The current moment–living constantly before the gaze of God: simple, still and quiet—is unknown, while an intense bursting forth occurs. The artist lives a life based upon the ideal that a creative effort reigns supreme over life itself. An expression means more than the expresser; the artist envisions himself an eternal creator. Moments are bombastic explosions of manifestation and experience. Existentially struggling with the world, emotion, vices, and addictions of pride; the modern artist gravitates toward the dramatic and overwhelming. The divinity within is granted absurd, often vile, yet magnificent glimpses of a supernatural reality which allows the surpassing of daily life, reality extinguished through demented usurping, all while drawing the artist away from the Godliness of the moment, entrenching him dependently about his past and what might come. I am convinced it is why so many artist fall victim to substance abuse. Spiritually trending, intensely attracted to the Divine, they force themselves ridiculously upon God. Virtue, behavior, and accountability mean nothing. The deepest moments the modern artist accomplishes expresses a brutal honesty, a stripping of pride and ego, exposing the decrepit nature of themselves, establishing a self-knowledge of extreme human lacking. However that self-knowledge is two-fold in Satanic nature. First that self-knowledge can go no deeper, falling short of truth. It is unable to reveal the truth of Christ. His death and resurrection being a salvific act of love and mercy. We are not just sinners. We are true children of God, loved and forgiven. The second existing wickedness is the fact that within the denouncing of one’s self through a powerful artistic expression, the creation itself, the artwork, addicts and becomes the focus of the artist’s attention. The artist becomes addicted to his own work, pride rears its ugly head, demanding the artist observe himself as someone special, gifted beyond the normal realm, an individual of unique calling able to live beyond the conceptions of his brother and sisters. No matter how well intended, the delusion draws the artist away from virtue. The self-perceived genius, or artist of merit, accepts nothing exist greater than his own world vision. The delusion, the forceful denying of truth, creates over-sensitivity, defensiveness, and self-absorption of various deranging kinds. Few artist will possess the ability to live stable, emotionally mature lives, lives that are a source of faith, hope, and charity for those intimate in their lives. Chaos and destruction, possibly suicide, result as consequence.
Continuing on with Father Thomas Philippe.
The great problem of spiritual persons, their constant and sometimes anguishing concern, is to keep their interior life intact, maintain its integrity and its unity in the midst of the most varied activities which will always continue in human life…..we shall then see the universality of action which must always enter into our lives as wayfarers…. It is not talents of mind nor even magnificent virtues that are the most necessary, but rather humility, obedience, mildness, patience, and all the Gospel virtues that the poor and the little ones practice (anawim) more easily then do the great and the rich of this world. These virtues, by reason of the littleness and poverty of their objects are within reach of all…The interior life, being entirely the work of the Holy Spirit, can embrace the whole of reality….In the present moment, so poor and limited on its earthly side, but so rich with eternity on the side of Heaven, he (the contemplative) can join with all parts of time and all dimensions of space.
