"Often rebuked, yet always back returning
To those first feelings that were born with me,
And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
For idle dreams of things which cannot be:
To-day, I will seek not the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.
I'll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
And not in paths of high morality,
And not among the half-distinguished faces,
The clouded forms of long-past history.
I'll walk where my own nature would be leading:
It vexes me to choose another guide:
Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side
What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
More glory and more grief than I can tell:
The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling
Can centre both the worlds of Heaven and Hell."
Emily Brontë
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
“I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child's faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do.
What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you fell you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.”
Flannery O'Connor, The Habit of Being
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Sunday, October 07, 2012
The Brothers Karamazov
"Fathers and teachers, what is the monk? In the cultivated world the
word is nowadays pronounced by some people with a jeer, and by others
it is used as a term of abuse, and this contempt for the monk is
growing. It is true, alas, it is true, that there are many sluggards,
gluttons, profligates, and insolent beggars among monks. Educated
people point to these: 'You are idlers, useless members of society, you
live on the labor of others, you are shameless beggars.' And yet how
many meek and humble monks there are, yearning for solitude and fervent
prayer in peace! These are less noticed, or passed over in silence. And
how surprised men would be if I were to say that from these meek monks,
who yearn for solitary prayer, the salvation of Russia will come
perhaps once more! For they are in truth made ready in peace and quiet for the day and the hour, the month and the year. Meanwhile, in their
solitude, they keep the image of Christ fair and undefiled, in the
purity of God's truth, from the times of the Fathers of old, the
Apostles and the martyrs. And when the time comes they will show it to
the tottering creeds of the world. That is a great thought. That star
will rise out of the East.
That is my view of the monk, and is it false? Is it too proud? Look at
the worldly and all who set themselves up above the people of God; has
not God's image and His truth been distorted in them? They have
science; but in science there is nothing but what is the object of
sense. The spiritual world, the higher part of man's being is rejected
altogether, dismissed with a sort of triumph, even with hatred. The
world has proclaimed the reign of freedom, especially of late, but what
do we see in this freedom of theirs? Nothing but slavery and
self-destruction! For the world says: 'You have desires and so satisfy them, for you have the same rights as
the most rich and powerful. Don't be afraid of satisfying them and even
multiply your desires.' That is the modern doctrine of the world. In
that they see freedom. And what follows from this right of
multiplication of desires? In the rich, isolation and spiritual
suicide; in the poor, envy and murder; for they have been given rights,
but have not been shown the means of satisfying their wants. They
maintain that the world is getting more and more united, more and more
bound together in brotherly community, as it overcomes distance and
sets thoughts flying through the air.
Alas, put no faith in such a bond of union. Interpreting freedom as the
multiplication and rapid satisfaction of desires, men distort their own
nature, for many senseless and foolish desires and habits and
ridiculous fancies are fostered in them. They live only for mutual
envy, for luxury and ostentation."
Fiodor Dostoyevsky
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Wednesday, October 03, 2012
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