very thirsty

Macarius said, “If you are stirred to anger when you want to reprove someone, you are gratifying your own passions. Do not lose yourself in order to save another.”

Arsenius always used to say this, “Why, words, did I let you get out? I have often been sorry that I have spoken, never that I have been silent.”

Abba Macarius the Great said, “If we keep remembering the wrongs which men have done to us, we destroy the power of the remembrance of God.”

Abba Poemen (called the Shepherd) remarked, “Do not give your heart to that which does not satisfy your heart.”

Abba Poemen said, “The beginning of evil is heedlessness.”

Abba Isidore of Pelusia said, “The desire for possessions is dangerous and terrible, knowing no satiety; it drives the soul which controls it to the heights of evil.”

Amma Theodora said, “Let us strive to enter by the narrow gate, Just as the trees, if they have not stood before the winter's storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us; this present age is a storm and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.”

Abba Doulas, the disciple of Abba Bessarion said, “One day when we were walking beside the sea I was thirsty and I said to Abba Bessarion, ‘Father, I am very thirsty.’ He said a prayer and said to me, ‘Drink some of the sea water.’ The water proved sweet when I drank some. I even poured some into a leather bottle for fear of being thirsty later on. Seeing this, the old man asked me why I was taking some. I said to him, ‘Forgive me, it is for fear of being thirsty later on.’ Then the old man said, ‘God is here, God is everywhere.’”

The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, tr. Benedicta Ward SLG. Liturgical Press, 1975.

the wholeness

As we are not whole in our selves when divided from other humans, so we are not whole as humans when divided from all other creatures, so we are not whole as creatures when divided from the earth, from a home country and the landmarks and reminders of a home country. These connections we need to know, understand, imagine, and live out. Thus we complete our story as members and as persons. This is the wholeness that we long for, that we hear about from our forebears and our prophets. This is the work we are called to, individually and all together." 

Wendell Berry, The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice. Shoemaker & Company, 2022. 484

an endless silent singing

Invisible even in a telescope magnifying sixty times, even in the purest summer sky, they drifted idly above the glittering Channel water. They had no song. Their calls were harsh and ugly. But their soaring was like an endless silent singing. What else had they to do? They were sea falcons now; there was nothing to keep them to the land. Foul poison burned within them like a burrowing fuse. Their life was lonely death, and would not be renewed. All they could do was take their glory to the sky. They were the last of their race.

J. A. Baker, The Peregrine. New York Review Books, 2005. 118.

broken open

Four times a day—on rising, at noon, late afternoon, and before going to bed—Agnes and Father Damien became that one person who addressed the unknown. The priest stopped what he was doing, cast himself down, made himself transparent, broke himself open. That is, prayed.

Louise Erdrich, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Harper Collins, 2001. 182.

to live in a broken world

People say they do not want to give way on important moral issues, but far too often they don't want to give way on the ego's need to be  right, superior, and in control. This mimics that "original sin," described as a "desire to be like God" and daring to eat the apple of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It's the human unwillingness to live in a broken world. In the illusion of an unbroken world, we do not have to rely upon grace, mercy and forgiveness, we do not need to be "saved."

Richard Rohr, Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety. Cincinnati, St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2001. 35.

self-selecting outsiders

Part of the attraction of fundamentalist discourse, and this fundamentalism can be Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Marxist, or secularist, is the way it allows partially self-selecting 'outsiders' from mainstream culture (and we are all such partially self-selecting 'outsiders' now) to see themselves as secret 'insiders' with a direct line in to What's Really Going On.

James Alison. Broken Hearts and New Creations. New York: Continuum, 2010. 38.

being forgiven

Imagine what it is like to be approached by your forgiving victim. It is actually very difficult indeed to spend time thinking about our being approached by our forgiving victim! What is it like to actually undergo being forgiven? We tend to try to resolve this by saying, 'Oh, it's not being forgiven that matters. It's forgiving: I must forgive!' So we work ourselves up into a moral stupor, straining ourselves to 'forgive the bastard!' This then becomes very, very complicated. But in fact the Christian understanding is quite the reverse: it's because we are undergoing being forgiven that we can forgive; and we need to forgive in order to continue undergoing being forgiven. But remember: it's because we are approached by our victim, that we start to be undone. Or in Paul's language: 'even though you were dead in your sins he has made you alive together in Christ.' Someone was approaching you even when you didn't realize there was a problem, so that you begin to discover, 'Oh! So that's what I've been involved in.'

James Alison. Undergoing God: Dispatches from the Scene of a Break-in. New York: Continuum, 2006. 64-65.