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Angustia: no way out!

  Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae describes anxiety as a narrowing (from Latin angustia - narrowness): "Anxiety is that which so takes possession of the mind as to leave no opening for escape" It is sorrow so intense it "binds the soul" and "shuts out all hope" The soul becomes trapped, unable to find a way out. This image is precise: anxiety feels like being in a space that keeps getting smaller, the walls pressing in. Aquinas's proposed remedies all point towards "dilatatio" (expansion) : -Grace as "enlargement and strengthening" of the soul. A distraction that provokes a "dilatatio" (expansion) and therefore:  -Joy and love causing the heart to widen -Hope opening what anxiety has closed -Contemplation of truth delighting more than pain saddens This is grace - not as theological abstraction, but as lived experience of sudden release. My frustration:  Around my 20s when I was trying to deepen Catholicism, I bega...
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Christmas tree: done!

 


It takes time: I found it was not at all an easy thing to decorate the Christmas tree. 

First I had to find a small, but nice one. I have to put it at a certain height and somehow protected, because of my cats.

Second I wanted some kind of sober decorations, not too much appealing for the cats.

Last year I managed, therefore, when I put it away, I simply wrapped it with all the decorations. And this year, the "mise en place" resulted a quite easy thing! Even if Daleel, the youngest cat, followed very attentively every step of the preparation!



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