Man and Woman

A few months ago I was talking to one of the Senior guys at TMC. The conversation came to be about boyhood and manhood. He said that he thought that manhood was about Gentle Strength. He said he thought that Jesus' Crowning with Thorns was an example of this~ Jesus possessing the power of God, yet allowing Himself be treated like scum. His strength was not so shallow that it exploded constantly from Him, like a tyrant. And He was not so weak that He could not have defended Himself.

I suggested that maybe womanhood is about Strong Gentleness. Mary, for example, is incredibly strong, the way she handles all that she must suffer. But her strength is never without gentleness. She is never pushy, never demanding of people. But neither is her gentleness, which defines her as being feminine, without strength. Consider her conversation with Christ, when she spoke with gentleness fortified with strength.

Man and Woman: Each is beautiful; each is powerful; neither can survive without the other.

Golden and Green

All golden and green
were the secret pond's pebbles,
glittering in sacred glory.
And we all ran down
where the rocks rose up,
splashed in divine white foam.
Our dirty feet
were surrounded by foam,
our eyes drinking in the light
as it sparkled untempered
on the secret pond's pebbles
all golden and green, golden and green.

Free stretched the sky
in unending blue,
unlimited by lazy clouds.
And the air was filled
with a sweet fresh roar:
the water pounded, dancing down
in a thunderous, delicate fall.
Years of forever here are captured
in rushing, unbroken waters.

Fight for Premicy

So I was thinking while enjoying the first few days of summer vacation~ philosophers, particularly ones like Seneca, say a lot about thought ruling emotion. And if you talk to just aobut any TMC student on the topic, they will say that yes, reason is supposed to rule over reason. And it makes sense, but WHY?
I mean, why is the ideal not to have emotions rule thought? And it occured to me while cleaming up campus for the seniors' graduation tomorrow afternoon that it is because the universal is supposed to rule over the particular.
This pattern of universal over particular is everywhere that is orderly. Consider the universe. The universal laws of nature and motion rule, and each particular case follows those rules, though with some exceptions. Or in art, ther are universal prinicples, and each peice of true and real art follows those principles, with some exceptions. That is why whenever we want to learn something, we start by observation of the immediate particulars which we sense. But we always move on to the universal principle, so that we can apply our knowledge about what we sense even to things which we have not sensed.
Thought and emotion follow in this pattern in that by thought we perceive and come to understand the universal principles. Emotions, on the other hand, are what make us alive in a particularly human way to each particular situation.
So thoughts, well reasoned thought, ought to be the guiding principle. By thought we understand a situation, analyze it, classify it and so discover how to handle it according to the modes of acting appropriate to the categoryunder which it falls.
Emotions are much more particular to the situation and personality of each person. They fluxuate with the slightest of details, so they do not have the same semi-reliable reliability that thought has. Emotions, rather, make us acutely aware and alive to what is going on around us in each particular situation, but they cannot guide us to the ruling universal principle as thought can.
So that, at least, is my theory as to Why it is better, in the fight for primacy, for thought to win over emotion.

Twixt Lowly Earth and Fiery Sky

Twixt lowly earth and fiery sky
runs the winding coarse of man.
From east to west the sun doth ride
over the shifting, changing land.

All the fires that burn to ash
and all the hills that falll to rubble
upon the decaying, drying earth,
all the trees that rot to stubble~

Death is all their end entails.
Death is all that comes of earth.
Not so for man, not so:
For him the Creator suffered birth.

Twixt lowly earth and fiery sky
till all was conquered and set right
ran the bounding coarse of Christ
that all the earth may be alight.

Changeless as the turning stars,
God's own love more changeless still
bides unto eternity,
each man's lonely heart to fill.