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"Relationship" with God


Gabriela

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Chuh, nunsense, I on purpose did not mention your name in my  first post. I feel like lots of people have been batting MLF around lately, so I figure a “you all” would be general enough without pointing any specific fingers.

I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I am quiet and gentle in real life, but all the repressed sass just explodes on the internets I guess. I don’t know if your online persona matches your offline one. Sometimes you seem obtuse or just difficult.  For example, when you are “disagreeing” with someone and they say something along the lines of “I guess we’re all different” that should read as a flashing neon sign saying “I’m done now, let’s agree to disagree.” Failing to pick that up and back off makes you look stingy or like you need to have the last word. That cue seems obvious to me. Do you have a problem irl with social cues? If so, that could be a thing.

Being honest here, I think the St. John of the Cross/ dark night/penance/ etc. thing is a sore spot for you.  People older than you in religion told you your interpretation was wrong and inexperienced, so you have built up a defensive posture about this where you call to mind all the ways you are not wrong or inexperienced.  And when all that you have called to mind goes through your keyboard and into the world it makes it seem like you are saying you are all that and a bag of chips, poop on everyone else.  Recognizing that you have a sore spot is a good way to avoid problems. I have a personal sitch with the police where I am heavily biased in favor of the police, just from my personal experience. So when I get involved in an argument about cops I have to check myself before I wreck myself.  

Anyway. I am against mob violence. We do this on phatmass. Somebody comes with an overly rigid or ridiculous idea and then we don’t let them forget about it for a year or two. Just keep pick pick picking. I remember that happening with phuturpriest. I agree with the mob almost all the time but at a certain point its enough already. Just let it goooooooooooooooooooo

 

Well,I guess we just have to agree to disagree again. You have a habit of attributing thing to people that just aren't real or true. But you are right about one thing, enough is enough. It's over- for me at least.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Here's something I often wonder about: How do you have a "relationship" with someone you can't see or hear?

I've tried figuring this out by imagining how a blind and deaf person has a relationship, but that's not the same thing. They can at least feel presences, smell others, and touch them. The way a person touches you and their "aura" in a room tell you a lot about them. But when it comes to God, that kind of experience is really, really rare.

So I thought about how women feel when their husbands are deployed for a long, long time. But that's not the same either, because there's a pre-existing "normal" relationship and usually letters.

When it comes to God, we've got Scripture and the Eucharist, but I think of those as "mass communications". Sure, we can understand them personally, and sometimes God clearly "says something" personal to us through them. But that's exactly my question: How is that a "relationship"? It seems like not much to go on.

I've thought about how we know Him by His actions, both in history and in our lives. But that's pretty distant, hardly the intimate kind of thing that makes a typical "relationship".

Basically what I'm struggling with is: How can we call what we have with God a "relationship" when we do 99.9% of the talking and He just hangs out invisibly somewhere, silent pretty much all the time. If that were your husband, you'd leave him.

Do y'all know what I'm getting at? I'm just throwing this out there in the hope that some wise Phatmasser has also thought about this and will say something that will help this "click" for me.

 

I recently started reading "Praying the Truth: Deepening Your Friendship with God through Honest Prayer" by William A. Barry SJ. He has some other books as well on the topic that you might find interesting.

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