Deeper than the Surface

The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self—all your wishes and precautions—to Christ. But it is far easier than what we are all trying to do instead. For what we are trying to do is to remain what we call ‘ourselves’, to keep personal happiness as our great aim …

Bless the Road

“All this while the human memory, as it sinks, has been aware of the eternal Images—of the God-bearer, of Beatrice, of Adam, of the three apostolic lords, of the City above and the City below, of teachers and poets and friends, of lovers and nuns; rather, has been accompanied by them. But now, it recalls …

On Visions of Beauty, with George

Here is a bit from MacDonald on enjoying beauty, not seeking its “encore,” and the true vision that beauty brings us: “I have had dreams of absolute delight, Beyond all waking bliss—only of grass, Flowers, wind, a peak, a limb of marble white; They dwell with me like things half come to pass, True prophecies:—when …

Pascal on the Extremes, via Lewis

I do not admire the excess of some one virtue unless I am shewn at the same time the excess of the opposite virtue. A man does not prove his greatness by standing at an extremity, but by touching both extremities at once and filling all that lies between them. — Pascal The modern idea …

This But Only Suspected Desire

This every soul seeketh and for the sake of this doth all her actions, having an inkling that it is; but what it is she cannot sufficiently discern, and she knoweth not her way, and concerning this she hath no constant assurance as she hath of other things. —PLATO Whose souls, albeit in a cloudy …

On Beatitude

The Paradiso is concerned to exhibit beatitude; that is—proper relationship between men and men and men and God. So full of derivation and nourishment are these that they may well be named the in-othering of men and the in-Godding of men. It is not an exterior but an interior relationship which is in question. It …