S
stpurl
Guest
From a woman who is an inveterate tea drinker I certainly do sympathize as I do enjoy the experience of tea drinking.
Feelings are important, but I can’t help but wonder about the thousands and thousands of Catholic saints whose experience (including feelings, sensual experiences, symbolism etc) was that of experiencing the reception of one species only. Either we look at them as having been ‘deprived of a fullness they should be entitled to’, or we look at them as having a perfectly full experience as it is. . . and we look at people today who choose ‘both’ as having equally full experiences that just happen to offer a visible sign of ‘two’ things, even though ‘one’ thing contains ‘both’ in and of itself.
So that instead of thinking, “Gee I miss the visible/sensual element of two”, and maybe unconsciously starting to think of myself as having a ‘lesser experience’ or being denied, I might focus more on consciously meditating on and pondering that, in ‘one’, I was receiving ‘both’. However, I don’t think I’d be able to do that right away without a kind of ‘mourning’ what I thought of as a loss, and I sure would appreciate people acknowledging that loss. . .so I do hope that even with this sadness on your part that you will find grace and peace and completeness.
Feelings are important, but I can’t help but wonder about the thousands and thousands of Catholic saints whose experience (including feelings, sensual experiences, symbolism etc) was that of experiencing the reception of one species only. Either we look at them as having been ‘deprived of a fullness they should be entitled to’, or we look at them as having a perfectly full experience as it is. . . and we look at people today who choose ‘both’ as having equally full experiences that just happen to offer a visible sign of ‘two’ things, even though ‘one’ thing contains ‘both’ in and of itself.
So that instead of thinking, “Gee I miss the visible/sensual element of two”, and maybe unconsciously starting to think of myself as having a ‘lesser experience’ or being denied, I might focus more on consciously meditating on and pondering that, in ‘one’, I was receiving ‘both’. However, I don’t think I’d be able to do that right away without a kind of ‘mourning’ what I thought of as a loss, and I sure would appreciate people acknowledging that loss. . .so I do hope that even with this sadness on your part that you will find grace and peace and completeness.