Autism Consecrated

Author: Autism Consecrated

  • ACAT 12: Soul Care is In Our Control

    ACAT 12: Soul Care is In Our Control

    Is our soul’s care completely in our control, or is it affected by outside forces?

     

    Before we attempt a question this big, let us please keep in mind our reason for asking in the first place.  We are looking at this section in the Baltimore Catechism:

    Q: Why must we take more care of our soul than our body?

    A: In losing our soul, we lose God and everlasting happiness.

    Now the variables of control come into play.  Is the soul interconnected with body and mind, or is it separate?  Recall this graphic:

    By proportion, the importance placed on body and mind should be less than that placed on the soul.  This is because body and mind are the components of ourselves which are enlivened and given identity by the soul, which is our core identity.  The body and mind are those parts of us which interact with the outside, and the soul is that which dwells on the inside. We might say that body and mind are influenced by the soul from the inside, and by forces beyond our control from the outside.  As such, any consideration of outside forces begins with body and mind… and, if we want to go even further, we can consider body and mind as outside forces unto themselves!

    But, first, what do we mean by “in our control”?  The choices we make?  How can we ever know if anything is purely “in our control”?  Even our behavior, which originates in the body, can be arguably influenced by factors beyond our control, both from outside ourselves and far within, on the molecular level.  We did not start our own hearts beating, after all!

    Let’s hurry up and define some of these things before we get too far out of hand.  Outside of high philosophical and theological circles, we think the following definitions will suffice:

    – IN OUR CONTROL: Things we freely choose

    – AFFECTED BY OUTSIDE FORCES: How far our actions stray from our intentions

    All this, and we haven’t even answered the question yet.  Is our soul’s care completely in our control, or is it affected by outside forces?

    The care we give to our soul is the sum total of the intentions we formulate (which are in our control) and the choices we make in the context of both things we can and cannot control.

    We cannot control the majority of forces which act upon us.  But our intentions are solely ours, and so the choices we make are often like arrows shot in wind, fog and all sorts of tricky circumstances.  The important point to remember is that intentions count in the equation.  We are not purely victims of circumstances, nor are we masters of our own fate.  We are conscious beings in between, and the God who put us here knows that we are not always able to act without influence and interference.  If we keep God in our intentions, our souls will not be lost.  The more we keep God in our intentions, the more our souls will stay on the path God imagined for us.  And the more we focus on outside forces, the more easily we will find ourselves disoriented.

  • ACAT 11: Lapses in Soul Care

    ACAT 11: Lapses in Soul Care

    What can we do to correct lapses in soul care?

    So far, the formula has been kept very simple.  Care of the soul is done for love of God, trust in God’s designs and in the sight of God’s gaze.  What then, can we do, when we fall short -whether by deliberate choice or by underestimating just how difficult these things can actually be to accomplish?

    First off, let us make this very clear: Lapses in soul care are part of the earthly human condition.  Even with the purest intentions, we live and operate in an environment that does not readily support soul care.  The constantly flowing thoughts, feelings and sensations of ordinary life make it difficult, if not impossible, to separate out the things that remind us of God at their very substance from the things that feel so good we look to them, and away from God, in their appreciation.  It really does not take much to distract us from God.

    What, then, when that happens?  Once or twice, we can catch ourselves and gently turn our minds back toward God.  Habitually, though, if we forget to do this, it can become very easy to focus more on what is right in front of us than what we can only recall through faith.   Our bodies are great attention grabbers, and once they grab top billing, soul care drops down: first to an afterthought, and then to progressively lower levels of priority until it reaches “cut.”

    It comes back, then, to cultivating a sense of awareness: of God, of ourselves, of one another, in that order.  But if our soul care has dropped significantly, we may need to build our awareness from the bottom back up.  By recalling the God-endowed value of others around us, we begin to remember the God-endowed value of ourselves; and then God Himself, Who Endows Value.

    Sound spiritual practices are rooted in awareness, but when we find soul care slipping, there are also specific means of maintaining this awareness once it has been recovered.  Catholics enjoy the sacrament of Reconciliation, also known as Confession, as a means of directly eradicating impediments to soul care.  Outside of Reconciliation, there is prayer, community support, pastoral counseling, liturgical participation, spiritual reading and reserving time for silence to get us back on track.  That last one, reserving time for silence, was a practice championed by our Patron Saint Thorlak during his time as Abbot at the Augustinian Monastery at Thykkvibaer.  More than just unplugging or refraining from talking, recollected silence is a deliberate listening.  Consider the difference between passive silence and active listening to see how the faculties are enlivened and engaged by periods of deliberate silence.

    Is there ever a point of no return, where we lapse so greatly that thinking of God seems hopeless?  Not during earthly life.  God is always a glance away.  He created us, endowed us with infinite value and set us up with an incredible operating system.  Nothing we do to ignore, forget or disown our soul can erase its existence… or its value.  Our souls can never depreciate.  Our responsibility, then, is to remember our souls’ value, and adjust our actions accordingly.  It’s that simple.

  • ACAT 10: Putting Our Soul At Risk

    ACAT 10: Putting Our Soul At Risk

    What courses of action are harmful to our soul, or place our soul at risk?

    We continue our deeper look at the warning put forth by the Baltimore Catechism that neglecting to care for our soul leads us to lose God for all eternity.  Even as appropriate as it may be to view that word “lose” as a sense of defeat, failure, or game-over, it is just as apt to consider that “lose” can also refer to something slipping out of sight, or not being where we can find it.  Either way we are separated from God.

    It would require a great deal more than annotation to delve into how a person’s actions can put the welfare of the soul at risk.  Our task here is to give an overview and a sense of direction, rather than an exhaustive treatment.

    Generally speaking: We place our soul in harm’s way any time we seek to remove it from God’s gaze.

    If we think of God’s gaze being filled with his love for us, then the things that would lead us to avoid God are those which are not good for our souls.  Try as we might, we cannot think of any exceptions to this guideline (and it’s not for lack of trying!)  Observe some examples that come to mind:

    • Going against anything moral (lying, stealing, cheating)
    • Purposefully calculating something that hurts another person
    • Doing things we would not have God watch us do
    • Avoiding God when we feel embarrassed, inadequate, frustrated or angry

    That last one may surprise some of us.  God does not punish us for reacting to our feelings, does he?  No.  But notice the example does not say to avoid the feelings or the reactions… it says that avoiding God in those moments puts our soul in harm’s way.  God knows us and loves us in our strengths and our failings, so why would we feel the need to pull away when we are at our most vulnerable?

    So very often we base our presence on what we bring to the room. And just as often we on the spectrum can feel overwhelmed, or empty, or unglued, or insecure, or shaggy around the edges, or grouchy, or tested to our very last limit… and be absolutely correct in declaring, “Leave me alone! I’m not very good company right now!”

    Statements like this are not what would put our souls at risk.  However, cultivating the habit of assuming God assesses us based on the quality of our successes, our moods or our cumulative merits is unfair to both ourselves and to God.  God does not operate on human terms.  He created us.  He knows our operating systems, but is not subject to them.  Taking our own space is perfectly fine for a time, but going to the extreme of shutting ourselves out of God’s gaze cuts off our spiritual oxygen.  God knows us even at our worst moments, and loves us exactly as he loves us in our best moments.  God’s love is not merit-based and does not fluctuate, either calculatingly like the stock market or erratically like the weather.  God’s love is a constant… a given… an immovable absolute.

    Even when we remove ourselves from his gaze.

    The flip side here is that God’s love never wanes; and so, it also does not push, beg, force or chastise.

    Are there consequences to the things we choose?  Most certainly.  Is there such a thing as Divine Justice?  Most certainly.  Does Divine Justice work the same way we understand human justice?  Most certainly not.  It can feel like there are no eternal consequences to the things we do, whether openly or in secret, whether we believe they count or believe they have no effect on any other person… but it remains those things which lead us to cut the connection which put our soul in mortal danger.