··· Tags pointing to: existence ···
By Their Very Existence…
Sometimes it is as though the praise of God filled with world; as if it went out to and enfolded all creation, as for instance in the Psalms of creation or in the response which those songs have found in the hearts of God-enraptured people such as St. Francis of Assisi. … This is not a fairy-tale approach to nature in which the sun and the moon, the trees, and so forth are personalized and given voices with which to sing the praise of God; it is an inspired poetic rendering of the idea that the sun and the moon and all created things are a mirror of God’s glory because, as His creation, they reflect something of His nature. In so doing, they praise Him by their very existence. They themselves know nothing of it, but man does; he can think himself into their silent song of praise; he can voice it on their behalf, offer it up to God and thus act as the spokesman of creation.
— Romano Guardini, The Art of Praying
These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower, there is no more; in the leafless root, there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. There is no time to it. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
What you possess in the world will be found at the day of your death to belong to someone else. But what you are will be yours forever.
— Henry Van Dyke
In being, one must know, or be aware of, when one is not being.
— Author unknown
Why Is There Something, Why Not Rather Nothing?
All my life I have been contemplating a question of Heidegger’s that has always struck me as strangely profound: why is there something, why not rather nothing?
Have you ever thought about that? We take our life, we take life, we take existence, for granted. We take it as a given, and then we complain that it isn’t working out as we wanted it to. But why should we be here in the first place? Why should we exist at all? Why should anything exist at all? Really there’s no reason for it. Why not nothing rather than something? Nothing would be simpler.
— Norman Fischer, essay titled “Gratitude”
Too much sanity may be madness, and the maddest of all: to see life as it is and not as it should be.
— Miguel de Cervantes
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
— Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving
I don’t know Who—or what—put the question, I don’t know when it was put. I don’t even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer Yes to Someone—or Something—and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life, in self-surrender, had a goal.
— Dag Hammarskjöld (Dag Hammarskjold), a journal entry from Markings
Rivers know this: there is no hurry.
We shall get there some day.
— Joan Powers, Pooh’s Little Instruction Book
Walk around feeling like a leaf
Know you could tumble any second
Then decide what to do with your time
— Naomi Shihab Nye [via]
Advice from a Tree
Stand tall and proud.
Sink your roots deep into the earth.
Be content with your natural beauty.
Go out on a limb.
Drink plenty of water.
Remember your roots.
And enjoy the view.
— Ilan Shamir (Advice from…), seen on a t-shirt/poster
Everything in life is speaking in spite of it’s apparent silence.
— Hazrat Inayat Khan