Hearts and minds and hands: Antidotes to Koyaanisqatsi

Slowly but surely I have been becoming aware in my own life of the presence of feelings. Dreadfully inconvenient things, feelings. They mislead terribly; they can however do the exact opposite point to some very deep truths if we know how to use them properly.

St Benedict's wonderful Rule speaks of balance between hearts and minds and hands - prayer, study and work. Each one of us, through our fallen nature, need to exercise one of these three more than the others, and do exercise one of these more than necessary with the result: Koyaanisqatsi - life out of balance.

What is blatantly clear from some of my previous posts is that I often argue too analytically without the facts and the learning. This comes from my personal Koyaanisqatsi of working my brain until it runs on empty. It's the same with all of us.

I do look at the Anglo-Catholic Church (I am inlcuding Anglo-Papalists here), and what I see are a group of usually highly educated people minutely defending their practices from an increasingly apostate world and often against some heresy threatening.

What a lot of people don't see from the true Anglo-Catholics (i.e. those who actually are concerned with Catholic Doctrine and Praxis, as opposed to those docetical Churchpeople who like to appear Catholic) is the welter of hurt and pain that has been done to them by other Churches who regard their sticking to doctrine as "politically incorrect", "antediluvian", "inappropriate" or "restrictive". The trouble is that with a Koyaanisqatsi biased toward the intellectual, an Anglo-Catholic struggles to deal with feelings intellectually rather than emotionally. I am sure that this produces the "spikiness" of attitude that the Liberals experience when they come into contact with the more vociferous of our Anglo-Catholic members. while an Anglo-Catholic prays deeply using rosaries, novenas, ikons, breviaries et c. there is no way that they can express the depth of their emotion save through their reliance on a clear Orthodox doctrine.

The other trouble is that of doing. Generally being intellectuals, Anglo-Catholics don't quite know what to do with their hands other than sign themselves with the Cross. What they usually consider a physical pastime is to add to a myriad of technical, and erudite, but thoroughly dry information on a blog. (Oops) What they miss then is some activity, some concrete means of doing Anglo-Catholicism. Personally speaking, the best activity that an Anglo-Catholic needs to be concentrating on right now is the Union of Anglo-Catholic Churches in the Continuum. We need to go out, and meet, pray, think and do Anglo-Catholicism together in equally balanced measure after the Rule of St Benedict.

To sit around a table and theorise about divisions is okay, but if that's all we Anglo-Catholics do, then we turn into rather dry, puffed up individuals that everyone resents, and we will only focus on divisions which may or may not be important.

To go into an oratory and pray together is okay, but if that's all we do, then we will start to argue about the precise patterns of the liturgy and which lectionary we are following and whether Fr. Vervoorst should have four ridges on his biretta or not.

To share our emotions is okay, but they must be shared honestly and not analysed too seriously. To work together is where I believe we need to focus. Getting together, finding out ways in which we can find activities that will get some Christian Charity spread into the world. But then, our work must not stop us from thinking about ways of recognising our differences and work to resolving them.

But then again, what do I know?