Nonaligned faith and practice in the present
Back in June, I published a very long essay on this blog titled “Melancholia & thisness: where does joy abide?”
In brief, this essay was a response to leadings I gained from rereading Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars. More specifically, is began with a description of melancholic temperament and walked through the approaches to reconnection with life adopted by Robinson’s characters (Kami and veriditas, Thisness) in order to arrive at joy.
In the key passage, I wrote of my experience in
…Somewhere I have read that joy does not depend upon happiness.
And somehow I have come to understand that salvation is first of all about this life, not the next.
Joy and salvation are intertwined in how one receives this finite, fallible, mortal existence. How one goes about each moment and each day. How one forgives the hurts and errors of each moment—one’s own and those of one’s fellows—and proceeds to the next moment with all the possibilities of life
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