Where have all the priests gone?

[Mole]

Where have all the priests gone?

I was raised by MSC priests. The all wore black and had an ethic of service, but the 60s swept through the Church and now almost no Australians are studying for the priesthood, and the Church must import priests from foreign counties to staff the parishes.

So where have all the priests gone? Why, they are hiding in plain view. They are all around me wearing black with an ethic of service. They service me every day with a smile, efficiently and inexpensively. They all wear black, which is ubiquitous and fashionable. And they work in every service industry, they identify with each other, and work in the gig industry.

 

[Tomb1]

Where have all the priests gone?

I was raised by MSC priests. The all wore black and had an ethic of service, but the 60s swept through the Church and now almost no Australians are studying for the priesthood, and the Church must import priests from foreign counties to staff the parishes.

So where have all the priests gone? Why, they are hiding in plain view. They are all around me wearing black with an ethic of service. They service me every day with a smile, efficiently and inexpensively. They all wear black, which is ubiquitous and fashionable. And they work in every service industry, they identify with each other, and work in the gig industry.

That's very interesting, Mole.

 

[Mole]

That's very interesting, Mole.

I thought I had left all the black clad priests behind but I look up and see they have followed me. The Hound of Heaven has found me over my morning coffee -

"I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat---and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet---
'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me".

 

[Lark]

This is one of the weirdest titles for a blog that I've ever seen.

 

[Red Memories]

You know normally I don't connect with a Mole post but I genuinely appreciate this one. I think it is true often these servers of goodness are in front of us amongst these every day people and they don't need to be assigned to a priesthood to be "good." Many serve others without a spiritual calling of sorts.

 

[Mole]

This is one of the weirdest titles for a blog that I've ever seen.

Anything original can appear weird.

 

[Mole]

You know normally I don't connect with a Mole post but I genuinely appreciate this one. I think it is true often these servers of goodness are in front of us amongst these every day people and they don't need to be assigned to a priesthood to be "good." Many serve others without a spiritual calling of sorts.

What a bloody crying shame that you don't normally connect with a Mole post. But I must be doing something right here, as you genuinely appreciate the post by Mole above.

All it takes is a little original thinking, with an appropriate metaphor, and Shazam, we are connected.

 

[Jaguar]

Prison.

 

[Lark]

Anything original can appear weird.

No, I was commenting on the fact that the thread is not really a discussion point, you ask no questions of anyone but instead offer what your most recent thoughts are on a topic. Those thoughts are highly idiosyncratic and obviously have greater meaning to you yourself than is obvious to anyone else. So it reads like a blog rather than a discussion post.

- - - Updated - - -

Prison.

Wow, you got to wonder what they Shaolin Temple did to anyone.

 

[Lark]

This sounds more like a riddle to me, is it not?

Mole's one of the users who I do think does this, most of traditional ways of sparking up a conversation dont work for them so instead you get stuff like this.

Its a door opener, after a fashion, or something to try and entice attention or interest, then, wham, some epic nutty meta-narrative gets sprung on you which is then unwaveringly repeated, without deviation, for the next ten years.

Maybe it works for some people.

 

[Mole]

This sounds more like a riddle to me, is it not?

I was raised by MSC priests and discovered the only mistake I could make was to treat them as an equal.

It was a mistake to treat them as an equal because it was a threat to their authority, and it was a threat to their psychological defences.

And having learnt this lesson with priests, I found I could transfer it to doctors, for it is also a mistake to treat doctors as equals.

The New Age suggests we are all equal, male and female, priests and worshippers, doctors and patients, officers and men, but the fact is some of us are authors and some of us are readers, and the author naturally has the authority.

 

[Mole]

The priest has been replaced by the doctor, and the church by the hospital.

We believed the plague was God's punisment for sin, so we flocked to the church for forgiveness, but today we don't believe in sin, we believe in a virus. So we flock to the doctor in the hospital.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The priest has been replaced by the doctor, and the church by the hospital.

We believed the plague was God's punisment for sin, so we flocked to the church for forgiveness, but today we don't believe in sin, we believe in a virus. So we flock to the doctor in the hospital.

I cannot speak to Australia, but in America, lots of people don't believe in a virus.

. The true religion of America is not even Christianity, but a combination of social darwinism and American exceptionalism. These are really far more foundational to the way people think than something like the 10 commandments or the Sermon on the Mount. The priests are media personalities; Donald Trump was a priest-king.

 

[Peter Deadpan]

Probably behind a locked door somewhere.

 

[Mole]

We love to be entranced, we love to be enchanted, we love magic. But magic requires magicians, who enchant and entrance us, who put our critical minds to sleep, and wake up our imaginative minds, so like children, we will believe whatever we are told. After all, we can't enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless we become as little children, who are looked after by and all powerful, and all loving God.

Medicine is based on evidence and reason, and rather than entrancing and enchanting us, gives us civilisation and its discontents, click Civilization and Its Discontents - Wikipedia.

And being discontented we seek the warmth and comfort of enchantment and entrancement in astrology or mbti.

Evidence and reason have replaced enchantment and entrancement, and left us homeless, out in the cold, click Trance: From Magic to Technology - PDF Free Download.

Dennis Wier in his book, "Trance: From Magic to Technology", defines a simple trance, "as a state of mind being caused by cognitive loops where a cognitive object (a thought, an image, a sound, an intentional action) repeats long enough to result in various sets of disabled cognitive functions".

Wier represents all trances (which include sleep and watching television) as taking place on a dissociated trance plane where at least some cognitive functions such as volition are disabled; as is seen in what is typically termed a 'hypnotic trance'.

With this definition, meditation, hypnosis, addictions and charisma are seen as being trance states.

In Wier's 2007 book, "The Way of Trance", he elaborates on these forms, adds ecstasy as an additional form and discusses the ethical implications of his model, including magic and government use which he terms "trance abuse".