Rest

My semester is finally over.

It's interesting how little my own grades actually meant to me this semester. Far more important were the grades I gave other people (namely my calculus students). I hate giving grades, especially for the class I taught.

Do my students know enough calculus to use in whatever profession they will choose? How in the world should I know? Do they know enough calculus to move on toward doing mathematics professionally? Not a chance--otherwise they would've taken a more advanced calculus course. The whole situation is mildly ridiculous.

Anyway, I'm glad it's over. Now I get to take a vacation. I find vacations to be highly necessary. I love what I do, but it takes a certain amount of mental energy that needs to be recharged.

Florensky talks about organizing the soul. That's definitely what I need to do. Much like my desk, my heart, soul, and mind tend to get disorganized as time goes on. Left unattended, my soul will simply collapse into chaos.

Balancing the internal and the external life is an endless struggle for human beings. The Internet makes that struggle all the more interesting. Here on this blog, the line between internal and external life is greatly blurred, isn't it? Is this a personal journal, or is it a public forum?

In search of balance, I do turn to spiritual wisdom for guidance, but I'm not always sure about what I find. For instance I read this quote today:

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door; pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matt. 6:6)

The room of the soul is the body; its doors are the five bodily senses. The soul enters its room when the mind does not wander here and there, roaming among the things and affairs of the world, but stays within, in our hearts. Our senses become closed and remain closed when we do not let them be passionately attached to external sensory things and in this way our mind remains free from every worldly attachment, and by secret mental prayer unites with God our Father. (St.Gregory Palamas)

I just don't know about this. Is the way to find God to shut everything out? The world around you is created by God. Did He mean for you to stop looking at it, or stop caring what's happening in it?

Don't get me wrong, the internal life is tremendously important. After all, the internal life must be organized just like any other part of creation. But is that where God is found? Is the only way to truly pray to first cut off the senses?

All I have energy for right now is to simply muse on the subject. I've just been thinking lately how remarkably inconsistent Christian thought has been on the subject of creation. Is it good or bad? I seek a spirituality that affirms the goodness of creation in every way.

What's profound to me is that once I hit the "publish post" button on my screen, the physical world around me will be changed in such a way as to affect many other people that I may not have even seen before.

Imagine that. What a profound effect we humans with our imagination have on the creation! It is as if we are agents of creation.

With that in mind, it makes me sad to think of people piously shutting off the senses in order to get close to God. Surely I can find connection to God also in organizing the world around me, as well as inside me, perhaps as something of an offering to Him.

A simple point and click will actually make a change in this world around me, and the creativity of the soul is powerfully made manifest through digital media. What a world we live in.

As I settle down this Christmas vacation to organize my soul and re-energize my mind, I hope also to write down my thoughts for the whole world to see, because, you see, the human soul is not simply a matter of the internal life. The human soul is a powerful creative force constantly making its mark on the world around it.

My soul needs rest. Somehow writing does provide rest, even in the effort it takes to force myself to do it.

It turns out my body needs rest, too, so good night everyone. Hope you've got your Christmas shopping done.