Monday, December 30, 2013

Happy New Year!


"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
To make an end is to make a beginning."

(T.S. Eliot)

Thursday, December 19, 2013

"All very alarming."


"Magdalene" by Da Vinci

C.S. Lewis on Mary Magdalene:
"The allegorical sense of her great action dawned on me the other day. The precious alabaster box which one must break over the Holy Feet is one's heart. Easier said than done. And the contents become perfume only when it is broken. While they are safe inside they are more like sewage. All very alarming."

(Letters to an American Lady)

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Small Boat on the Ocean

"At issue here is the question: 'To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?' Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down.  
Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me...."
-Henri Nouwen
The Return of the Prodigal Son