Remembering what I'm doing...

I have to remember what I'm currently involved in accomplishing:

1. My 6th complete reading of the Bible.
2. Read complete Edwards' History of the Work of Redemption.

I'm reading the Bible because my now long-standing goal is to read it complete 7 times. I have to do the 6th reading to get to the 7th. (Looking back I did the first three complete readings over a span of seven or so years, then the 4th in '04, the 5th in '05, and now the 6th in '06.)

I'm reading the Edwards book because it will complete my theological studies. It is a history of sacred history. I didn't have that complete yet. (The history angle I mean. I had the poetry and philosophy angle (not to mention the actual Bible). By poetry I mean things like Pilgrim's Progress and Grail Romance, and by philosophy I mean biblical doctrine as found in systematic theology and biblical theology, etc.) I have everything else. So reading the Edwards book is important as a completion of a long project to learn the Bible and to learn biblical doctrine.

As for a big 3rd thing... Godliness. Practical effort. Work aims. One thing that happens when you come to ultimate influences and truth is you can get depressed with the fact that there is 'no where to go, nothing to do.' That Camu-ish box you can get into. No illusions means seeing the prison. The prison of your body and the prison of the fallen world. Limitations. As C. S. Lewis said, you don't want to just be able to fly into nature in some bird-like way, you want to be nature. (Using nature as an example of what a human being can long towards.) Like Demeter isn't just a goddess-being she is an actual field of wheat. That type of thing. Imagine experiencing those sensations and influences you've had glimpses of from nature and the different seasons and different times of life, and then imagine being actually inside them, or being them. That is what Lewis was getting at when he was articulating this banging your head against a wall thing human beings get into when they think of ultimate things and where they are now and the limitations they are under. On this subject Calvin says: don't even try to think about how things are and will be different in a glorified body, in a regenerated heaven and earth. You can't conceive of it, and you can only come woefully short of conceiving it and get yourself depressed about it all. In so many words Calvin said that.

3. Conscious shock effort. With aim.

I've been there before and it is the road to higher experiences. It is. You have to move in more than just the fourth dimension. You have to move inwardly and upwardly. But it's also just the road to increasing level of being and increasing capacity for more understanding and ability to see and experience more...