The farther one gets from The Church, the farther one is from The Loving Programmer and the Operating Instructions He has provided for those who have made the decision to live in His Kingdom. The sanest people are His most obedient subjects.
Beyond the wall that surrounds His Kingdom are the Realms of Lunacy. Their ruling viruses live only to corrupt human operating systems. As we can see by the wrecked lives around us, they are good at corruption.
Many do very well in the outlying realms. “Faster horses, younger women, and more money!” are typical goals of those who choose to live beyond the pale. Those things are obtainable without having to bring vanity under control.
When we begin to control the vanity that has led us away from The Kingdom, a possible ascent has begun. The bloated go on diets, drunks get themselves sober, addicts try to break their destructive habits. One way to enter The Kingdom was outlined by St. Ignatius Loyola in The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.
St. Loyola recommends to every person in every age that we imagine ourselves as a knight called into the King’s Court. We picture The King on the throne. The Queen is next to him. The magnificent chamber has within it the King’s nobles, advisors, and councilors; the best, most intelligent, most perceptive people in The Kingdom. We stand before that glittering court and are asked questions. We know that those hearing our answers know when we are telling the truth. We imagine the questions they will ask us to find out if we are fit to enter The King’s service. We imagine our answers.
This spiritual exercise helps us get in the habit of realizing that, in The Kingdom, there is no deception possible. We begin to see the insanity of sinning, and the lunacy of compounding sins by lying about them. We see that sanity is, in fact, living our lives in such a way that The King’s questions can uncover ever fewer faults as we draw nearer to our day in that court.
Push-ups, sit-ups, and chin-ups exercise our bodies by raising them against the force of gravity. Spiritual exercises raise our souls from any lesser attraction than eternal joy in The Kingdom. Imagining ourselves living in such a way that The King will have no reason to allow us into His service raises our minds and souls to a higher level than the insanity we are striving to escape.
