Is it the Head or the Heart?

On the opinion page of the Catholic Times, the columnist recounts a meeting with his son, a diocesan priest, and his  wife's brother who is a religious brother. They met at his house and were discussing the spiritual life. The columnist decided to be the 'dignified on-looker," but that was not to be the case.

Since he had made the 30-day Ignatian Retreat, he joined the conversation by saying that during the exercises he had a new appreciation of the power of the imagination in reflecting on the activities of our Lord. The religious brother did not accept the columnist's idea that the imagination could serve as an approach to God. He didn't pay attention to what the brother was saying and maintained his contrary opinion.

The columnist acknowledged the difficulty they both had in accepting each other's opinion.  Since the columnist was a poet, refuting the power of the imagination seemed an impossibility, while yet understanding the brother's difficulty.  He explained briefly what he meant by using Catholic philosophy and Jacques Maritain as support for his opinion.

The brother said that the only way we can approach God is by intuition. Because the columnist got involved in an exchange of  pros and cons, it made for an awkward situation. The meeting with his son the priest, and his wife's brother, ended on this note, and they left.  Without  any decision, the curtain came down on this particular event. This is life.  Most of  life goes on without many of us agreeing to most things, except, perhaps, agreeing to disagree.

The priest later gave his father an understanding of what happened that evening. The mainstream of Catholic thinking goes along with Thomas Aquinas and St. Ignatius of Loyola. They both acknowledge the intellect and the imagination but the Franciscan school: St. Francis, St. Bonaventure, St. John of the Cross, and others, see the way to God by the intuition and distrust the other ways. This  made the relationship with the Church a delicate one.

 
When the columnist later went to a restaurant and ordered a blow fish, he saw the discussion in a different light. The blow fish, he says, as we all know, has a poison that can kill, but once controlled the fish is a delicacy.  There are  those who stay  away from the fish because of the dire possibilities; they want to play safe.

The way of the imagination is a place of splendor but can be the devil's playground when indulged in to the point of aestheticism. Writers such as Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, and Oscar Wilde would be of this school.  Just hearing the names of these geniuses we know what is meant. Like the blow fish, poison is lurking in their writings.

...Yes, not to eat the blow fish is the safest way but, the columnist tells us, he is accustomed to its taste.