read this to overlap the "Bootleg Shakespeare" version Quill Theater put on last month. Quill turned the absurdity into hilarity! they had us rolling in the aisles.
The Desert Fathers - Helen Waddell
wow can't get enough of the sayings or of Waddell's comments. what else of hers can I find at the library?
Unspoken Prayer in Spiritual Formation: Tool or Trouble - Wayne Lewis
this was Wayne's doctoral dissertation! so cool. i could hear his voice through the whole thing.
Seeking God: The Way of St. Benedict - Esther de Waal
read for Ruah, second time through. brother Terry recommended it to me early on in my time at richmond hill. i think "Balance" is my favorite chapter. if you want balance, you need to balance good things, like mercy and justice, work and rest, yin and yang. in my life, I try to "balance out" the bad with good - resentment with mercy, selfishness with justice, greed with generosity, etc...that's not working out too well
Centering Prayer: Renewing an Ancient Christian Prayer Form - Basil Pennington
another Ruah book, another second time around
Hermits: the insights of solitude - Peter France
where did i find this? i think in someone's donation of books to richmond hill. it's too bad Josh and I couldn't stay for dinner with the monks in Chora way back when! France sets the scene for his book in Patmos, and finishes with a interview of fellow Patmos lover Robert Lax. that island leaves an impression.
the curious incident of the dog in the night-time - mark haddon
the armstrong leadership program planned to see the dramatic version of this, and i was going to drive the bus, but then remants of hurricane michael came flying through and canceled all plans. so i read the book instead. loved it
Notes
King Lear
- Let it be so, thy truth then be thy dower!
- yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself
- upon the gad
- the quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself
- This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits of our own behavior, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars...
- Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit/All with me's meet that I can fashion fit
- That which ordinary men are fit for I am qualified in...
- Beat at this gate that let thy folly in
- Blasts and fogs upon thee!
- Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise
- How far you eyes may pierce I cannot tell/ Striving to better, oft we mar what's well
- Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I'll whistle...
- No, rather I adjure all roofs, and choose/ to wage against the enmity o th air
- O reason no the need! Our basest beggars/ Are in the poorest thing superflous./ Allow no nature more than nature needs,/ man's life is as cheap as beast's
- contending with the fretful elements...unbonneted he rus, and bids what will take all
- the art of our necessities is strange, and can make vile things precious
- shake the superflux to them, and show the heavens more just
- how light and portable my pain seems now, when that which makes me bend makes the king bow. He childed as I fathered
- I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw...
- and worse I may be yet. the worst is not/ so long as we can say "this is the worst"
- he has some reason, else he could not beg
- as flies to wanton boys are we to th gods; they kill us for their sport
- that will not see because he does not feel
- bear free and patient thoughts
- the usurer hangs the cozener
- the bounty and benison of heaven to boot, and boot
- and take upon's the mystery of things/ As if we were God's spies
- List a brief tale
- the strings of life began to crack
- I pant for life. Some good I mean to do, despite of mine own nature
- he hates him that would upon the rack of this tough world stretch him out longer
- Let the rest go bat-fowling for letters and syllables: do you seek for the sense (Evagrius)
- a mighty silence and a great quiet among them
- The root of the quarrel between the humanists and the Desert is not the exact length to which the branding of the flesh may legitimately go. What ailed Rutilius and Gibbon and Lecky is the Roman civic conscience...
- Verily, this is love's road
- the extravagance of their lives is the extravagance of poetry
- I remember crying out until day became one with night
- how amid swords and deserts and wild beasts, chastity never was captive
- the beasts speak Christ and thou dost worship monsters in room of God
- without whom no leaf lights from the tree
- no one in this world ought to be despised
- they are men of letters, cursed with a feeling for prose
- as a fish must return to the sea, so must we to our cell
- so should the monk forever have grief in his heart
- the body of a woman is fire
- the remedy is not so much in man's anxious thought as in God's compassion
- for nothing so dispirits the demon of lust than when his assaults are revealed
- the treasure house of the monk is voluntary poverty
- his soul fell into a weariness and confusion of thought
- ...Why didst thou will to be a monk?...Believe me, I have been in this habit seventy years, and not for one day could I find peace: and thou wouldst have peace in eight?
- perseverance in his cell brings the monk to his calling
- i shall return to the community, for in all places there is need for struggle and for patience and above all for the help of God
- give thy body in pledge to the wall of they cell
- the cell of a monk is the furnace of Babylon...it is also the pillar of cloud
- thou hast not yet found thy ship, nor put thy baggage in her, nor begun to sail, and art thou already in the city whither thou hast planned to come?
- my sins are running behind me and I do not see them, and I am come today to judge the sins of another man
- if thou dost not hold thy tongue wheresoever thou goest, thou shall be no pilrgim. but control thy tongue here, and here thou shall be a pilgrim...unless thou shalt first amend thy life going to and fro amongst others, thou shalt not avail to amend it dwelling alone
- If we dwell upon the harms that have been wrought on us by other men, we amputate from our mind the power of dwelling on God
- all these things did the great old men bring to proof: and they found that is good to eat a little every day, and on certain days a little less: and they have shown us this master road, for it is easy and light
- if there be three in one place, and one of them lives the life of holy quiet, and another is ill and gives thanks, and the third tends them with an honest heart, these three are alike, as if their work was one
- the fragrance of the Holy Ghost
- But then came the generation that now is, and wrote them on papyrus and parchments, and laid them idle in the windows
- is the lamp injured in aught, that thou hast lit the others from it?
- if he be diligent, he can every day and every hour begin the good life anew
- nay, but i shall repent today; tomorrow, may the will of God be done
- but if there is war in thy soul, add, "Help me"
- though fasting be indeed useful and necessary, it is a matter of our own choosing: but love in its fullness the law of God requires at our hands
- but grant me this, Lord, in Thy tender mercy, to have at least the beginnings of right living
- what is contempt?...to be below the creatures that have no reason, and to know that they are not condemned
- that with our neighbor there is life and death
- saw the old man as it were one flame
- verily i know not if i have clutched at the very beginning of repentance
- i sold that same word that ever used to say to me, sell that thou hast and give to the poor
- every labor of the monk, without humility, is vain
- do thou weep and seek the comforting of God, for we are all deceived
- whatsoever things are from God, have their spring in humbleness: but such things as spring from authority and anger and strife, these are of the Enemy
- for it behoves them that serve God to be straitened in themselves
- having this hope that my brother's gain will bring forth fruit
- there is no stronger virtue than to scorn no man
- a contrite and humble heart
- progress in patience and humility by their steadiness at work
- without working with his hands a monk cannot endure to abide in his place
- unless he persist in renouncing them daily
- these to whom religion was not the mask of desire, but the countenance of that eternity which ever doth besiege our life
- of the beauty and the loveliness of her there could be no wearying for a world of men
- i have heard of thy God, that He bowed the heavens and came down to earth, not for good men's sake, but that He might save sinners
- He will loosen the load of my wrongdoing
- it is no new thing to fall in the mire, but it is an evil thing to lie there fallen
Unspoken Prayer in Spiritual Formation: Tool or Trouble
- The primary ingredient of all these tools of Christian spiritual growth is prayer.
- Just how much of Christianity is exclusively Christian?
- Exodus 14:14
- Lamentations chp 3
- The heightened joy at the nearness of a spouse is similar to the experience of the spirit in unspoken prayer.
- Jesus is the evidence that God is ready and desirous for the flame of relationship to burn brightly in all humans.
- in exploring the Rule we find that this is a description of day-to-day living which revolves around Christ
- the Word of God is directly addressing the reader or listener
- to listen closely, with every fibre of our being, at every moment of the day
- St. Benedict makes obedience his ascetic practice
- the air a staircase/ for silence (RS Thomas)
- a continuing process of holding on against all odds
- our stability is a response to that promise which reassures us that he is faithful and steadfast and that we should 'never lose hope in God's mercy.'
- conversatio morum - obedience and perseverance to the lifelong process of being transformed as he follows Christ
- the younger monks are to be called 'brother' but for the older he has chosen a particularly gentle but pleasing word 'nonnus'
- the real definition of pride is the desire to control
- Grace evokes our acts, supports them and fulfills them
- prayer + study + manual work = all three should command respect and all three should equally become a way to God
- we are essentially rhythmic creatures
- the sense of God's presence can be mediated through daily work and not destroyed by it
- the means of continually reminding myself of God's presence
- work, held in low esteem, has become a common bond amongst his monks
- I cannot become a good host until I am at home in my own house
- my primary relationship is with Christ: it is through him that I forge my link with others
- rid your heart of all deceit
- every human face is an ikon of Christ, discovered by a prayerful person
- we can only be healed through forgiveness, and we can only gain freedom through it
- work to keep my peace of mind and pay attention to my own morale
- 4 principles of common life: solidarity, pluralism, authority, subsidiarity
- It [prayer] is at the same time root and fruit, foundation and fulfillment
- scripture - basis of a continuing dialogue with Christ
- psalms learnt "by heart"
- the work of God in uninterrupted prayer, which is the search for God in all things
- ...we teach spiritual things spiritually
- some of the saints have called attention the safe-keeping of the mind; others, the guarding of the heart; yet others, sobriety; yet others, mental silence, and others again by other names. but all these names mean the same thing
- it is most important to realize that prayer is always God given
- not even our own thoughts can be considered our own (during c. prayer)
- how much of our prayer seems to be just so much spaghetti
- in teaching centering prayer, the simpler the presentation the better
- how many things there are I do not want!"
- i can see your vanity peeping through the holes in your cloak
- paracharatein to nomisma (altering the currency)
- for the desert fathers, solitude was not merely an escape from distractions; it was a teaching presence
- if he is not edified by my silence, he will not be edified by my words
- the gift of the starets: a gift for revealing thoughts...sees behind the mask
- "the prophet king david says, first depart from evil, then do good. but with modern men the situation is just the opposite
- "it is a great relief when, for a few moments in the day we an retire to our chamber and be completely true to ourselves. it leavens the rest of our hours
- the way of discrimination and the way of devotion
- zaouia - hospitality houses
- "it is a deepening of the present" (solitude)
- "i'm just a writer who writes what is in his mind"
- "take the five books you'd take to a desert island and keep rereading them"
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