Return to Scholarliness

Now that the holidays are behind us, I should very much like to return to Map of Life. As I recall, we left off at ch. 3. I had a lengthy and thoughtful draft all written out - it only needed a conclusion - but 'twould appear I have lost it. Disappointing in the extreme!!!

Ch. 3 handles the question, 'What is heaven like?'. First and foremost, it is knowledge and love of God, and perforce is perfect happiness. Optime*. Its the most accurate explanation, but we still don't have the entire concept of heaven straight. It makes a world of difference, however, when you consider the quote,

It is better to think of heaven, not only as a reward, but also as the result of a good life.

Life is therefore necessary to prove ourselves worthy of the prerequisites, if you will, of heaven. This brings us to my favorite quote from this Chapter,

Heaven consists in such a relationship with with God that no created nature, by its own powers, could be adequate to it....Those who remained in the love of God were granted the powers and admitted to Heaven.

Any ideas for discussion??? I feel lamentably unoriginal.
*Latin for Very good.

A Map of Life Ch. 1

Here are a few of the notes I took.

This chaper begins by stating that in all things created, it is in man alone that spirit and matter are united.

I continued reading and this quote caught my eye

"Those who do not accept the revelation (of God), ...can neither direct their own lives aright nor help other men... From such men the world has little to hope and an immense amount to fear....In a word the reason for their helplessness, both in relation to themselves and in relation to others, is that they do not know what man is."

It goes on to say that we can't know what something is until we know what it is for. The only way to find out what something is for, is to ask it's maker. In the case of men our maker is God, so the only way to truly know what our purpose in life is for God to tell us.

"Accepting his word (God's), we know the purpose of our existence and we can proceed to live intelligently according to it. Short of this knowledge, intelligent living is not possible for us."

I think the biggest question of the chapter is: What according to you, is the purpose of man's life?

I guess we'll just have to keep reading to find out what the answer is. That's all for now, so until next time.....

A Map of Life, chapter 2

During chapter 2 I took more notes and this was my favorite quote from this chapter:

"A man might very well say that he would not be bound by the law of
gravity: yet he would be well advised to keep his affirmation within the sphere
of words. Let him push it to act, and he will no longer be a modern man, but a
corpse, part of that history which in his newness, he so despised."

I thought it was a pretty good summary of the chapter, plus I really liked the quote, in fact it sounds rather Chestertonian to me. Again any suggestions for a discussion will be more than welcome.

A Map of Life, post 1

I have finally started A Map of Life, and I collected some quotes that
summarize this first chapter:

"It is of his (man's) nature to be a union of matter and spirit."

"In no case is intellegent living- that is, living consciously for the true purpose of
our being- possible to us unless we are told by God what the purpose is."

Any questions or comments? I'm not much good at starting a discussion but if anyone else has an idea for a discussion please post or comment.