The night of Jesus’ arrest, on the Mount of Olives, blood was shed twice. Jesus sweat drops of blood and the servant of the High Priest’s blood was shed when Peter took his sword and cut off the man’s ear. Peter was part of a group of Jesus’ followers who had all shown up, complete with their swords. They had come to the garden, in warrior mode, which is the default mindset that we enter, when we are just “doing our duty”. A warrior culture organizes itself around the principle of the blood brotherhood, where each member willing to spill blood, in the pursuit of their common goal. They become possessed by a counterfeit clarity.

“I just felt like I was at the end of the line. I was down there by myself and I got to feelin’ that I took so many pills that I’d done it, that I was gonna blow up or something. I hadn’t eaten in days, I hadn’t slept in days, and my mind wasn’t workin’ too good anyway. I couldn’t stand myself anymore. I wanted to get away from me. And if that meant dyin’, then okay.”

I was watching Nathan and Marco, our videographers, during a Livestreamed Mass and noticed how they used the techniques of selective focus. Nathan, during the consecration, as the priest raised the host, would pan up to the host and then bring it into sharp focus. Then as the priest lowered his hands Nathan would bring the crucifix, on the back wall, into focus. His camera artistry complimented the flow of the liturgy. The camera, that Nathan uses, has a number of autofocus points that he can activate, in real time, whenever he wants to change the subject in focus, to suit the composition of his shot.

One question that I hear from time to time asked is what is the difference between contraception and Natural Family Planning? (NFP) Are the two equivalent from a moral perspective? Obviously they differ in the approach to preventing pregnancy. Not only that, NFP can be used as a means for a woman to get pregnant rather than avoid pregnancy.

What I would like to do, is to take a quick look at the question of: How do we know? And how does the way we acquire knowledge relate to our spirituality?