December 2011
23 posts
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“About Fountains” by Rainer Maria Rilke Suddenly I know so much about fountains, those incomprehensible trees of glass. I could speak as though of my own tears, which, in the grip of such fantastic dreaming, I spilled lavishly and then forgot. Did I forget that heaven extends hands to many things and thrusts into our turmoil? Did I not always see unrivaled greatness in the rise of old...
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“We are born for wonder, for joy, for hope, for love, to marvel at the mystery of...”
– Dean Koontz, from Life Expectancy (with thanks to whiskeyriver)
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“… nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be...”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christmas Eve 1943, writing from prison to his niece and best friend (via wesleyhill)
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“Let us, then, meditate upon the Nativity just as we see it happening in our own...”
– Martin Luther (via wesleyhill)
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Mary Karr, "Descending Theology: Christ Human"
wesleyhill:
Such a short voyage for a god, and you arrived in animal form so as not to scorch us with your glory. Your mask was an infant’s head on a limp stalk, sticky eyes smeared blind, limbs rendered useless in swaddle. You came among beasts as one, came into our care or its lack, came crying as we all do, because the human frame is a crucifix, each skeletos borne a lifetime. Any...
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“Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is...”
– Pope John Paul II (via classyliving)
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“Jesus came in the fullness of time. He will come again in the fullness of time....”
– Henri Nouwen
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“Nativity” by John Donne
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb, Now leaves His well-belov’d imprisonment, There He hath made Himself to His intent Weak enough, now into the world to come; But O, for thee, for Him, hath the inn no room? Yet lay Him in this stall, and from the Orient, Stars and wise men will travel to prevent The effect of Herod’s jealous general doom. Seest thou, my...
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“The two violent winds of skepticism and conservatism have picked up extra energy...”
– N. T. Wright, Simply Jesus I’m only a few chapters into this book and love it already.
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Because this blog can never have too much Flannery O’Connor: “Redemption is meaningless unless there is cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause.”
“The great novels we get in the future are not going to be those that the public thinks it wants, or those...
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“When we experience the deconstruction of our faith, we are in good company with...”
– Mark Scandrette, “Growing Pains: The Messy and Fertile Process of Becoming (Via Stephanie Elaine Berbec)
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Watchinvisibleforeigner:
N.T. Wright speaks about Rob Bell and how Americans obsess over the doctrine of Hell. (via thetrichotomousexploration)
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“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to...”
– C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (via bookoasis) The Weight of Glory is one of my absolute favorites of Lewis. This passage is one that truly resonated with me when I first read the book in college a couple of years ago.
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“I once received a letter from an old lady in California who informed me that when the tired reader comes home at night, he wishes to read something that will lift up his heart. And it seems her heart had not been lifted up by anything of mine she had read. I think that if her heart had been in the right place, it would have been lifted up. You may say that the serious writer doesn’t...
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“One thing we know for sure about our God: Our God is a God of the living, not of...”
– Henri Nouwen
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“But having more freedom she only became more profoundly aware of the big want....”
– D.H. Lawrence (via suzywire)
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“You see, I want a lot.
Maybe I want it all:
the darkness of each endless fall,...”
– Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God
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I just finished reading Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament by Ellen F. Davis. It’s a really wonderful book that helped me understand a great deal about Old Testament stories that I had either overlooked or never truly considered because of their familiarity. My favorite chapter is titled “Voluntary Heartbreak” and is focused upon Psalm 51, one of my most...