Thoughts for the Week
This week's thoughts come from none other than my Ames guru and retired religious studies professor, Dr. Ted Solomon, who sent me this quote from a Scottish Rite, 28th Degree "Knight of the Sun" Masonic initiation in which he participated. Ted is uttering these words "from the House of Venus":
What we call evil, wrong and misery are the necessary discords which unite with concords of the universe to make one grand harnony forever. ...Thus in us are passions, tendencies to anger, selfishness, greed and lust. These arise from the animal within us. If we are to be balanced, if we are to advance, these passions must be opposed and overcome by tendencies to compassion, to love, to generosity, to charity. These arise from the God within us. In your life either the animal or the divine will predominate. Take care that it be the divine which triumphs.
Ted goes on to say how he also plays Osiris, the Egyptian King of the Dead, in the 31st Degree, where the candidate for initation is playing a dead soul and appears to be judged in the Court of the Dead. At the end of the trial, Ted, or Osiris, says:
The strong who easily resist temptation are less deserving than the weak who struggle to overcome. To fall and rise again is more heroic than never to fall. To do wrong and make amends, to sin and to repent belong to a noble nature. The Gods love men the more because they are not perfect, even as fathers love their sons with their faults--and weaknesses...My judgement upon the life and soul of the candidate is that he is worthy. Let his soul enter the realm of everlasting light, rest and peace.
What we call evil, wrong and misery are the necessary discords which unite with concords of the universe to make one grand harnony forever. ...Thus in us are passions, tendencies to anger, selfishness, greed and lust. These arise from the animal within us. If we are to be balanced, if we are to advance, these passions must be opposed and overcome by tendencies to compassion, to love, to generosity, to charity. These arise from the God within us. In your life either the animal or the divine will predominate. Take care that it be the divine which triumphs.
Ted goes on to say how he also plays Osiris, the Egyptian King of the Dead, in the 31st Degree, where the candidate for initation is playing a dead soul and appears to be judged in the Court of the Dead. At the end of the trial, Ted, or Osiris, says:
The strong who easily resist temptation are less deserving than the weak who struggle to overcome. To fall and rise again is more heroic than never to fall. To do wrong and make amends, to sin and to repent belong to a noble nature. The Gods love men the more because they are not perfect, even as fathers love their sons with their faults--and weaknesses...My judgement upon the life and soul of the candidate is that he is worthy. Let his soul enter the realm of everlasting light, rest and peace.
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