Sunday

ONE HAS A "god" when a finite value is viewed as something one cannot live without and continue to be happy.

Anxiety becomes neurotically intensified to the degree that I have idolized finite values......Suppose my god is sex (or the power of my sexuality and prowess) or my physical health or a political party. If I experience any of these under genuine threat, then I feel myself shaken to the depths. Guilt becomes neurotically intensified to the degree that I have idolized finite values.

Suppose I value my ability to teach and communicate clearly.......then if I fail to teach well I am stricken with neurotic guilt. Bitterness becomes neurotically intensified when someone or something stands between me and something that is my ultimate value.

To the extent to which limited values are exalted to idolatries----when any of those values are lost---boredom becomes pathological and compulsive. My subjectivly experienced boredom may then become infinitely projected toward the whole cosmos. This picture of the self is called despair. The milder forms are disappointment, disillusionment, cynicism.

---Thomas C. Oden


Your religion is what you do with your solitude.

----Archbishop William Temply