If there is no meaning but what is made and maintained by humans, than this means humans have it in their power to make more, better meanings. When viewed in the context of spirituality, this means an approach to divinity and morality that does not depend on the arbitrary commands of a priestly class, but rather the useful, equitable decisions made by individuals interested in forging their own relationship with the divine. The message of Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus is delivered in a roundabout fashion with wit and creativity, and yet the novel nevertheless manages to produce a commentary on meaning and being that is far more intelligible and insightful than many of the German intellectuals it was spoofing. By focusing on something as ubiquitous and mundane as clothing, Carlyle was able to demonstrate...
However, this process of creation and maintenance becomes hidden within social custom, and so society is eternally forgetting its own origins. Carlyle's goal, then, is to show how this process of meaning creation and maintenance, once demonstrated with clothes, relates to all other aspects of existence, and particularly spirituality. In the end Carlyle is able to demonstrate how this more accurate understanding of meaning-making can lead to a spirituality free from arbitrary dictates but nevertheless oriented toward a better understanding of divinity.
Journal Exercise 5.3 B: Responding to Literature 1. The cherry blossoms dint each other in the whisper of wind as I throw them up in the air and prance under them, pretending I am someone else's bride. He comes, charging like a mule with his lips pursed and his hands clutched over the bronze medallion he wears as if it were his heart- his wife- and I'm caught white handed with the smiles and the cherry blossoms, which dint each
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