¬ link
love is the voice under all silences,
the hope which has no opposite in fear;
the strength so strong mere force is feebleness:
the truth more first than sun more last than star
··· Northwest ···
¬ link
Boredom and Sloth
Habitual boredom, boredom not just with a specific task like chopping wood for ten hours a day but boredom that is like the sky spread over everything, not only leads to sin, but it is in itself a sin. The medievals called it sloth (acedia or akedia), one of the seven deadly sins.
Sloth is not simply laziness. In fact, it does not necessarily imply any physical laziness at all. It means the passivity and inactivity of the will and the passions even in the presence of the true good. In other word, it is the soul’s refusal to eat its food. As violence is spiritual junk food, boredom is spiritual anorexia.
¬ link
When God Forgives Us
The literal truth is that when God forgives us he doesn’t change his mind about us. Out of his unconditional, unchanging, eternal love for us he changes our minds about him. It is God’s loving gift that we begin to think of repenting for our sin and of asking for his mercy. And that repentance does not earn his forgiveness. It is his forgiveness under another name. The gift, the grace, of contrition just is God’s forgiveness. The gift of contrition is, for example, the grace we celebrate in the sacrament of penance. If we go to confession, it is not to plead for forgiveness from God. It is to thank him for it. The gift of contrition is the gift of recognizing God’s unswerving love for us. It is the gift of having the confidence to confess our sins, to admit the truth. And if we do that, then, as Jesus told us, the truth will set us free (cf. John 8:32).
¬ link
Fads, Trends, and Principles
When looking at the world, you can divide much of it into Fads, Trends or Principles. A little mantra for this is that we should Play with Fads, Work with Trends, and Live by Principles… in modern times, we are too often Seduced by Fads, Ignorant of Trends, and Resistant to Principles.
¬ link
Hearing God pronounce our names in love is the core of mysticism.
— Ron Rolhheiser, from article “Mystic or Unbeliever”
¬ link
But if you don’t write of things deep in your own heart,
What’s the use of churning out so many words?
¬ link
Is that a path or a rut?
¬ link
Did you feel you were tricked
By the future you picked?
¬ link
You never had a rope around your neck. Well, I’m going to tell you something. When that rope starts to pull tight, you can feel the Devil bite your ass.
¬ link
Sin made Hell, divine love made Purgatory.
¬ link
Idolatry is committed, not merely by setting up false gods, but also by setting up false devils; by making men afraid of war or alcohol, or economic law, when they should be afraid of spiritual corruption and cowardice.
¬ link
All my life false and real, right and wrong tangled.
Playing with the moon, ridiculing the wind, listening to the birds…
Many years wasted seeing the mountain covered with snow.
This winter I suddenly realize snow makes a mountain.
¬ link
Do not dwell in the problem, dwell in the solution; the solution is God.
¬ link
For Whatever Reason
For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is—limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death—he had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.
¬ link
We must try not to compare our insides to other people’s outsides.
¬ link
Only two classes of books are of universal appeal: the very best and the very worst.
¬ link
It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can’t people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has got the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it; it is beyond me.
¬ link
What the artist wishes to do—as far as you are concerned—is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself.
¬ link
Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.
¬ link
You can see only as far as your headlights…
Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
¬ link
Work Is Love Made Visible
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
¬ link
Ideas result from the collision of metaphors inside the head.
¬ link
There’s an old saying, “Life begins at forty.” That’s silly. Life begins every morning you wake up.
¬ link
Presence does not happen in the mind.
¬ link
Jesus was precisely the “once and for all” sacrifice given to reveal the lie and absurdity of the very notion and necessity of “sacrificial” religion itself.
¬ link
Jesus Christ is both the medium and the message.
¬ link
By Some Other Means Than Forgiveness
As long as you can deal with evil by some other means than forgiveness, you will never experience the real meaning of evil and sin.
¬ link
Grief Work
“Grief work” [is] holding the mystery of pain and looking right at it and learning deeply from it.
¬ link
Overexplanation separates us from astonishment.
¬ link
Most people in my experience are still into fearing God and controlling God instead of loving God.
¬ link
The Bible will not make transformation dependent on cleverness at all, but in one of God’s favorite and most effective hiding places—humility.
¬ link
God comes to us disguised as our life.
¬ link
If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.