triumphant suffering ... what could be more incendiary and revolting to the secular mind ... they call it masochistic ... not I think having read that author ... but the reference to sex and bondage is appropriate to the neopagan spirit in bondage not to the virtue but to the sin of sex and trying to escape that servitude turns to humor and wit ... doesn't succeed very much however in that endeavor ... must for example run from any suffering it can't hide ... must for example almost always get caught ... that's when the true epicure turns stoic ... now some stoicism like the stoicism of that greek philosopher and slave certainly warrants a triumph ... but then there's the petulant and pessimistic stoicism of the roman emperor temperamentally incapable of a triumph surely ... a something he'd find too bitter ... but neither stoic nor epicure is happy enough ... not the stoic certainly but the epicure too fails in his pleasure ... for any of its variety suffers from too short a shelf life ... where that in particular is the christian's strength ... this quick life to fight by jesus' side for eternity
1. 1pet4: 12-13; 5: 10; 2. kreeft, rpnt 131-2; 3. philosopher slave and emperor: epictetus and marcus aurelius
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