What is Reality? Participation is not Optional: The Evidence of the Habit, Ascetic Practices

Matt, philosopher/author/person discusses Reality with Karen..

Three perspectives on the meaning of a paper clip:

The avant garde

The creative

The good/useful

The multi-aspectuality of cognitive science.

The thread that ties reality together S

ynoptic Gospels - St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory of Nysa

We are portions of God.

The habit of Scripture is to say.

What is a skill? We are mimicking the habit of our chosen profession

The sublime pedantic

Can one ever really "come back" from a psychedelic trip?

Hegel - Negation and affirmation. You're always right and you're always wrong.

Until you have the "now" straight, you can't think about a practice.

Distinctiveness v. the common

The human being is a microcosm of the macrocosm.

Counterfeits

Heretic

Participation is not optional

We have the evidence of the habit.

We have to eat and sleep - not beyond that.

Ascetic practices. Even the discipline of going to work every day is an ascetic practice.

Orthodoxy is Paradoxy.

Jesus ascended the cross as a king stepping up to His throne.

If it's not real, it's not real. If it is real, whatever it relates to becomes real.

Children like order.

We can approach these wonderful things without falling into sentimentality.

To a perennial problem, there is a perennial innocent.

The human being - the land - the promise. The land being defiled - redeeming the land.

We're not disposable. We're not going anywhere. The land lies fallow.

Order consists of beginning, middle, end. Don't attach to a practice a guaranteed end. When we don't give up, we're reflecting God.

Beware of worshipping at the wrong altar.