This has been a very interesting and learning week for me summed up in the reading from the Magnificat for today by Father Simon Tugwell, O.P. in his Day by Day message "Where Our Heart Is." He begins with, "Our identity is 'I' and "Not-I'" which for me translated to "I" and "naught" or 1 and 0, in digital language. My work involves studying to understand the effect of the digital domain on people, what it means and why, how we use it, where it changes us or how we adapt to it. The digital domain gives visibility and manifestation to the domain of "thought." The effects of "thought" on the human race reduced to 1's and 0's yet expanded to affect every person on the Earth in some aspect. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin described this domain as the noosphere, or the "sphere of thought" in his book The Phenomenon of Man. The noosphere as analogous to the geosphere and the biosphere. (More on this later.)
Each person's true identity comes down to "mine" and "not mine." It is displayed in what we take as our own revealed in our actions precipitated by our words. Fr. Tugwell writes that "it is a part of man's dignity, according to Saint Thomas, that he is the source of his own actions, just as God is the source of his own actions. Our freedom is the created image of God's freedom." We are the source of our actions because we choose. Not choosing is also a choice. So, the essential source of our identity is "God" or "not God." We choose. It is written, "... I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life ..."
Fr. Tugwell writes, "In Thomistic language, we cannot apprehend the essence of our own souls. To have a pure heart is to have a heart that is known to be rooted in the mystery of God and which must therefore systematically elude our grasp." ... "To have a pure heart is to have a life which wells up in us from a source too deep for us to plumb. To have a pure heart is to have a heart that is not just created by God and then abandoned to us for us to make the most of it; it is to have a heart which is constantly being created and sustained by the newness of the life of God."
I say that the mystery of God is not too deep to plumb. Our lives consist in our choice of either the action of plumbing the depths or not. We have only to ask or ignore. It is written, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
I choose life. It is where my heart is, "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" and therefore I guard my heart. It is written, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are (flow) the issues of life."
