Did you inherit a sickness? Did you blame god? Do you believe in God? Do you believe in yourself? Are you still on fire? Did you ever put out the fire?
“There’s an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists.”
“So God just leaves?”
“No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.”
“Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.”
There are days I want to track down God, point to my life, and yell“None of this was part of my Goddamn plan!” But I know he’d just shrug and say, “I’m sorry. I never meant to give the impression that this would be easy. I know none of this is easy. But that’s why I invented time. It’s a slow, steady promise. If you just hold on, just white knuckle grip keep breathing, time will take you far enough away from anything. It’s a blessing. It will heal you if you let it.”
"The young monks ask me if a saint can know he is a saint while he lives and still remain one. The knowing of it must lead to pride, they think, which would disqualify. I tell them to eat their breakfasts. Who cares what a saint knows? Saints are like storms—you cannot predict or control them, you can only hope they pass you by unscathed."
The old man, who said he was a prophet, had raised the boy to expect the Lord’s call himself and to be prepared for the day he would hear it. He had schooled him in the evils that befall prophets; in those that come from the world, which are trifling, and those that come from the Lord and burn the prophet clean; for he himself had been burned clean and burned clean again. He had learned by fire.
Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.
“People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means ‘mean.’ It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it.”
- Marco, Book #30: The Reunion, pg. 71 (by K.A. Applegate)
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—Lisa Marie Basile, from Andalucía
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“So God just leaves?”
“No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering.”
“Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.”
“But the sparrow still falls.”
—The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
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point to my life, and yell“None of this was part of my Goddamn plan!”
But I know he’d just shrug and say, “I’m sorry.
I never meant to give the impression that this
would be easy. I know none of this
is easy.
But that’s why I invented time. It’s a slow,
steady promise. If you just hold on,
just white knuckle grip keep breathing,
time will take you far enough away
from anything. It’s a blessing.
It will heal you if you let it.”
—Clementine von Radics
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—The Folded World, Catherynne M. Valente
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—Louise Glück, from “October,” Averno: Poems
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—Flannery O’Connor, The Violent Bear It Away
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—Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis
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—Shusaku Endo
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Matthew 10:34
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- Marco, Book #30: The Reunion, pg. 71 (by K.A. Applegate)