Once, when it seemed to me that my will was altogether too weak, and too much divided, for me to hope of ever attaining blessedness, I thought to comfort myself by considering all those faithful, fortunate souls who now enjoyed God's favor and protection. Though I myself remained in exile, yet I supposed some vicarious peace might come to me if, in all humility, I could still be happy for the blessed.
However, it quickly occurred to me that I was simply not entitled to give up on myself so easily; that my soul was given into my care, and I had better learn to keep and to steward it; that it was, after all, not my own, but the Lord's. All that was good in me belonged to the Lord, and I could not allow that which was worst in me, -- the flesh, the dross, -- to keep me bound, and to bind up the spirit of the Lord in me.
So now I looked upon my soul as something precious and heavenly, though fallen; as a pearl dropped into the mortal clay. It was not me, nor any object belonging to myself, but, rather, something external and otherworldly, belonging to the stars. It was a messianic infant placed in my arms, whom no one would safeguard and raise up plainly if I did not.
In this moment, I cared nothing for myself, yet I cared for my soul more than all, as an emblem of all; for I knew I could bring no other souls to Christ before I had honestly secured the salvation of my own soul in him. As it was mine, so was it His, and everyone's. I looked upon my soul as something wholly other and better than myself, which God had, for mysterious reasons, entrusted to me (no doubt believing in me more than I believed in myself), and the salvation of which entirely depended on me, and on my diligence in offering it back to Him.
Now I know I must learn to care for this Christ-child soul; to cradle it more tenderly than I was able; to reassure it of the blessings of Father, and procure for it that peace which alone renders all souls receptive to the love, charisms, and graces of God.
This soul, I see, is a lamb bound to me, with no other to give her nourishment, nor comfort. Haven't I been a careless shepherd, tugging and dragging her around after me, as I rush off in pursuit of pleasures in which she has no part?
"My soul, my little lamb, my child of God, -- forgive me. I have fed on coarse stuff, and starved you. But now, as I pray over the words of the saints, I see you eating new grass from my hand. As I awaken to the gospel of Christ, I see you drifting to sleep in my lap. As I bury my will in the ground, I see you gambol and play, resurrected. And all my joy is in you."
Sunday, October 30, 2011
The Soul In Flight
The soul not bound to love in Christ is fallen, -- yet, not only fallen, but falling.
As a bird, when she ceases to beat her wings, must soon fall, so the soul, when she ceases to be ardently and intently fixed upon the love of God, cannot support herself in "flight".
Though the bird's wings may remain outspread, and though she may coast for a time on the wind, according to the momentum generated, nevertheless, without beating her wings, she will gradually begin to sink, and not to climb; likewise, the soul may retain her purity for a time, upheld by the breath of the Holy Spirit, according to the momentum for good consequences which have been generated by good works, -- yet, because she is no longer actively praying, she has already begun to exhaust her reserves and, if she does not resume her prayer, she most assuredly will fall.
Faith, trust, hope, and love in Christ are the very wings of the soul. Let them beat, and not cease before you come to rest in the perfect peace of God, which is your highest perch.
As a bird, when she ceases to beat her wings, must soon fall, so the soul, when she ceases to be ardently and intently fixed upon the love of God, cannot support herself in "flight".
Though the bird's wings may remain outspread, and though she may coast for a time on the wind, according to the momentum generated, nevertheless, without beating her wings, she will gradually begin to sink, and not to climb; likewise, the soul may retain her purity for a time, upheld by the breath of the Holy Spirit, according to the momentum for good consequences which have been generated by good works, -- yet, because she is no longer actively praying, she has already begun to exhaust her reserves and, if she does not resume her prayer, she most assuredly will fall.
Faith, trust, hope, and love in Christ are the very wings of the soul. Let them beat, and not cease before you come to rest in the perfect peace of God, which is your highest perch.
On Freedom From Self
[Excerpted from
"The Royal Way of The Cross"
by Francois Fenelon]
So long as we are centered in self, we shall be prey to the contradiction, the wickedness, and the injustice of men. Our temper brings us into collision with other tempers; our passions clash with those of our neighbors; our wishes are so many tender places open to the shafts of those around; our pride, which is incompatible with our neighbors', rises like the waves of a stormy sea; — everything rouses, attacks, rebuffs us.
We are exposed on all sides by reason of the sensitiveness of passion and the jealousy of pride. No peace is to be looked for within when we are at the mercy of a mass of greedy, insatiable longings, and when we can never satisfy that "me" which is so keen and touchy as to whatever concerns it.
Hence in our dealings with others we are like a bed-ridden invalid, who cannot be touched anywhere without pain. A sickly self-love cannot be touched without screaming; the mere tip of a finger seems to scarify it!
Then add to this the roughness of neighbors in their ignorance of self, their disgust at our infirmities (at least as great as ours towards theirs), and you soon find all the children of Adam tormenting each other, each embittering the other's life. And this martyrdom of self-love you will find in every nation, every town, every community, every family, often between friends.
The only remedy is to renounce self.
~ Francois Fenelon, "On Freedom From Self"
"The Royal Way of The Cross"
by Francois Fenelon]
So long as we are centered in self, we shall be prey to the contradiction, the wickedness, and the injustice of men. Our temper brings us into collision with other tempers; our passions clash with those of our neighbors; our wishes are so many tender places open to the shafts of those around; our pride, which is incompatible with our neighbors', rises like the waves of a stormy sea; — everything rouses, attacks, rebuffs us.
We are exposed on all sides by reason of the sensitiveness of passion and the jealousy of pride. No peace is to be looked for within when we are at the mercy of a mass of greedy, insatiable longings, and when we can never satisfy that "me" which is so keen and touchy as to whatever concerns it.
Hence in our dealings with others we are like a bed-ridden invalid, who cannot be touched anywhere without pain. A sickly self-love cannot be touched without screaming; the mere tip of a finger seems to scarify it!
Then add to this the roughness of neighbors in their ignorance of self, their disgust at our infirmities (at least as great as ours towards theirs), and you soon find all the children of Adam tormenting each other, each embittering the other's life. And this martyrdom of self-love you will find in every nation, every town, every community, every family, often between friends.
The only remedy is to renounce self.
~ Francois Fenelon, "On Freedom From Self"
Being Prayer
The soul is always praying. True prayer is this: that we cease to do anything else but pray; that we become attentive to the prayers already being offered up in the silence of our hearts. When we pose no resistance, and do not attempt to manipulate the processes already at work deep within ourselves: only then can true prayer take place.
It is not ecstasy, it is honesty. Sadness is sadness, allowed to be sadness. Silliness is itself. Strangeness is free to be strange. Ignorance is not in conflict with itself. Mysteriously, it is wisdom.
You cannot make yourself what you are. You cannot tell the heart that loves to love. You cannot plant a seed that is planted, nor pick a fruit that is picked. The hunger you desire is already there. The sanctity. The fullness overflowing, welling up from within. The questing and the answer are both there, dancing.
This is purity: not to act, but to be.
Who is the enlightened man? He who does not thwart himself by attempting to be that which he already is. Only when we stop pretending, or trying to be something other than we are, will we become free to be who we really are.
It is not ecstasy, it is honesty. Sadness is sadness, allowed to be sadness. Silliness is itself. Strangeness is free to be strange. Ignorance is not in conflict with itself. Mysteriously, it is wisdom.
You cannot make yourself what you are. You cannot tell the heart that loves to love. You cannot plant a seed that is planted, nor pick a fruit that is picked. The hunger you desire is already there. The sanctity. The fullness overflowing, welling up from within. The questing and the answer are both there, dancing.
This is purity: not to act, but to be.
Who is the enlightened man? He who does not thwart himself by attempting to be that which he already is. Only when we stop pretending, or trying to be something other than we are, will we become free to be who we really are.
Origins of Love and Hate (The Work of Ian Suttie)
excerpted from
Houston Smith's 'Why Religion Matters --
The fate of the human spirit in an age of disbelief':
My wife recently reminded me of something I had forgotten. At a dinner for Aldous Huxley while he was paying a campus visit to Washington University, I asked him if there were any books he found himself returning to reread. Actually, he said, there were two. One was Sir Herbert Read's Art and Education, and the other was a book no one at the table had heard of, Ian Suttie's The Origins of Love and Hate. A psychologist herself, Kendra followed up on the second book, and this is what she found.
Its author, a Scottish psychiatrist, is something of a mystery. He died in midcareer in the 1930s, and his work was ignored until a student of his, John Bowlby (who became a recognized name in child development) took it up and brought out a second edition of his neglected book.
Like Freud and other psychologists, Suttie believed that people deal with anxiety by shoving worrisome thoughts and feelings into the unconscious. But unlike psychoanalysts, he became convinced (through his research) that our major repression is not of sexual or aggressive impulses, but of affection and openness. These repressions in individuals add up to a collective taboo against tenderness in our culture.
Beginning at the beginning, Suttie saw infants as born with two independent propensities. The one that is primary is a desire for the social give-and-take and responsive relationship that we call love. Sexuality, in his theory, exists as a separate and independent drive.
This is a radical departure from Freud, who likewise posited two independent drives, one of which was sex (the libido) and the other aggression (the death instinct). Freud described the infant's earliest state of consciousness as auto-erotic and narcissistic. In contrast, Suttie describes the earliest state (before an infant distinguishes self from others) as a state of symbiotic communion.
In the Freudian view the infant believes itself to be omnipotent, able to summon the mother magically with its cries. It cathects to the mother because she relieves its bodily tensions. To Suttie this was as preposterous as saying that the mother loves the baby because it is a breast-reliever who drains her swollen mammary glands.
In his years of careful scrutiny, Suttie became impressed by the early overtures that a baby makes to evoke a response from its mother. It fixes its gaze raptly on her face while nursing, and this often gets a loving gaze in return. Soon the baby starts smiling around the nipple as it sucks, often dropping the nipple and gurgling with delight if it gets a response. It is a mode of flirtation. In the harmonious interchange between mother and child, the baby gives the only thing it can, its love and its body as the first shared plaything. It is the beginning of the creativity that Suttie sees in play, which (he says) is the mother of invention, not necessity.
A critical period comes when the infant is able to differentiate itself from its mother, and its mother from other persons. It is only then that the baby can know separation from its mother, and this separation is the major source of human anxiety -- a fear of abandonment. At about the same time acceptance is no longer unconditional. Some of the baby's bodily functions and activities may not be welcomed or approved.
In baby or adult, hell hath no fury like rejected love. Here we have Suttie's understanding of the origin of anger, which he saw as a baby's desperate effort to reclaim a lost harmony. Depending on the degree of pain and hopelessness the small child goes through, intimacy may be renounced, and a quest for self-sufficiency (or power) may take its place -- the typical route in our individualistic West, Suttie believed.
...It is as Suttie says: tenderness is a cultural repression. Suttie cites obsessive, compulsive sex as another possible outcome of repressed tenderness, for (as the saying goes) you cannot get enough of what you do not really want. What is needed and wanted (but our culture denies, Suttie argues) is emotional closeness. Not sex, nor food, nor power, nor any other surrogate can satisfy that need.
Houston Smith's 'Why Religion Matters --
The fate of the human spirit in an age of disbelief':
My wife recently reminded me of something I had forgotten. At a dinner for Aldous Huxley while he was paying a campus visit to Washington University, I asked him if there were any books he found himself returning to reread. Actually, he said, there were two. One was Sir Herbert Read's Art and Education, and the other was a book no one at the table had heard of, Ian Suttie's The Origins of Love and Hate. A psychologist herself, Kendra followed up on the second book, and this is what she found.
Its author, a Scottish psychiatrist, is something of a mystery. He died in midcareer in the 1930s, and his work was ignored until a student of his, John Bowlby (who became a recognized name in child development) took it up and brought out a second edition of his neglected book.
Like Freud and other psychologists, Suttie believed that people deal with anxiety by shoving worrisome thoughts and feelings into the unconscious. But unlike psychoanalysts, he became convinced (through his research) that our major repression is not of sexual or aggressive impulses, but of affection and openness. These repressions in individuals add up to a collective taboo against tenderness in our culture.
Beginning at the beginning, Suttie saw infants as born with two independent propensities. The one that is primary is a desire for the social give-and-take and responsive relationship that we call love. Sexuality, in his theory, exists as a separate and independent drive.
This is a radical departure from Freud, who likewise posited two independent drives, one of which was sex (the libido) and the other aggression (the death instinct). Freud described the infant's earliest state of consciousness as auto-erotic and narcissistic. In contrast, Suttie describes the earliest state (before an infant distinguishes self from others) as a state of symbiotic communion.
In the Freudian view the infant believes itself to be omnipotent, able to summon the mother magically with its cries. It cathects to the mother because she relieves its bodily tensions. To Suttie this was as preposterous as saying that the mother loves the baby because it is a breast-reliever who drains her swollen mammary glands.
In his years of careful scrutiny, Suttie became impressed by the early overtures that a baby makes to evoke a response from its mother. It fixes its gaze raptly on her face while nursing, and this often gets a loving gaze in return. Soon the baby starts smiling around the nipple as it sucks, often dropping the nipple and gurgling with delight if it gets a response. It is a mode of flirtation. In the harmonious interchange between mother and child, the baby gives the only thing it can, its love and its body as the first shared plaything. It is the beginning of the creativity that Suttie sees in play, which (he says) is the mother of invention, not necessity.
A critical period comes when the infant is able to differentiate itself from its mother, and its mother from other persons. It is only then that the baby can know separation from its mother, and this separation is the major source of human anxiety -- a fear of abandonment. At about the same time acceptance is no longer unconditional. Some of the baby's bodily functions and activities may not be welcomed or approved.
In baby or adult, hell hath no fury like rejected love. Here we have Suttie's understanding of the origin of anger, which he saw as a baby's desperate effort to reclaim a lost harmony. Depending on the degree of pain and hopelessness the small child goes through, intimacy may be renounced, and a quest for self-sufficiency (or power) may take its place -- the typical route in our individualistic West, Suttie believed.
...It is as Suttie says: tenderness is a cultural repression. Suttie cites obsessive, compulsive sex as another possible outcome of repressed tenderness, for (as the saying goes) you cannot get enough of what you do not really want. What is needed and wanted (but our culture denies, Suttie argues) is emotional closeness. Not sex, nor food, nor power, nor any other surrogate can satisfy that need.
Material Abundance and "Poverty Mentality"
Popular today, particularly among enthusiasts of "The Secret" and certain channellers of the "Abraham Hicks" variety, is a belief that material wealth may be spiritually justified. The fundamental assumption here is that material resources are infinite, and that everyone may be materially wealthy without any one having to go without, or to do the dirty work of procuring and refining the resources necessary for an opulent lifestyle. It is, admittedly, a rather attractive proposal, especially to those of us who are very much attached to worldly possessions and to the dream of acquiring material wealth without having to step on the backs of the "less fortunate". What is required, they say, is merely a change in perspective, from one which views resources as finite, or lacking, to one which views them as infinite, or abundant. Again, the apparent optimism of this belief system is rather attractive, and especially to those of us who equate unbridled optimism with a spiritually evolved state of mind. Nonetheless, my own understanding of the matter is that this seeming optimism is very far from spiritual, that it is, in fact, deeply cynical and pessimistic, and that defining wealth in material terms is downright pernicious to the life of the spirit and the state of the world.
A number of terms have arisen or been tweaked in order to better articulate this belief system, chief among them being "abundance" and "poverty mentality". It is said that those who do not enjoy material wealth are suffering from a "poverty mentality", which inclines them to refuse material benefits which they see as incompatible with a spiritual life, or which they imagine themselves to be unworthy of. The millions who toil in sweatshops or languish in dry climates without proper nourishment, they say, are merely unaware of their own worth and of the infinite abundance available to them, and to all, through a simple shift in perspective.
Both poverty and abundance are almost invariably defined in material terms. No attention is payed to the sacred teachings of all ages, and to the saints and sages throughout the world who, with one voice, have decried material wealth, and urged us to redefine our conceptions of wealth along more spiritual lines. That is, to see material wealth as spiritual poverty, and to define true wealth as intimacy with God. Patience, calm, humility, generosity, compassion, inspiration, and joy which does not depend on, nor discover itself in, material things, are the true gifts of the spirit, and the primary consolations which any spiritually-minded individual has an interest in procuring.
In order to see through this latest craze in "spiritual materialism", it is necessary only to take an honest look at the matter, without a desire to justify our attachment to those things which gratify the senses of the body, rather than the higher senses of the intellect and the heart. It is helpful, but not essential, to reflect on the claim made by holy men throughout history that, when the soul leaves the body, those attachments we have made to sensory objects and gratifications will be useless and will only weigh our souls down (indeed, we will be like "hungry ghosts", groping at things which only pass through our fingers), while those attachments we have made to more abstract objects of contemplation will serve us well; -- although, at the very highest levels, attachment itself is, ultimately, to be renounced.
First, we should understand that, while the specific manifestations of this trend may be new and unique, the desire to find spiritual justifications for worldly attachments is at least as old as the world itself. No doubt, the rise of capitalism has done much to lend these teachings a semblance of respectability, to undermine many of the long-standing objections toward them, and to engender in people a stronger desire to see such teachings legitimized, -- but the essential thrust of the phenomenon is nothing new. Likewise, misguided teachers like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, or Osho (the self-styled "rich man's guru"), with his 90+ Rolls Royces, are growing bolder and acquiring an alarming degree of popularity these days, but there have always been, and perhaps there may always be, false prophets of a similar stamp.
The present wave of materialism, cloaked in spiritual garb, appears to have been originated and popularized by the Pluto in Leo generation,-- or, more specifically, by the shadow-side of this generation. The darker side of Leo has always been associated with opulence and excess, while Pluto's very nature is to bring up from the depths of the psyche the darkest impulses, and often to clothe them in language which makes them appear deeper or more spiritual than they actually are. While the positive side of Leo is one of enlightened self-interest, the negative side is one which equates self-empowerment with self-entitlement. Here we have a veritable definition of the expounders of the present materialism.
One book which brings these matters into stark relief would be Chogyam Trungpa's "Spiritual Materialism", but, provided we are honest with ourselves, we need not make a serious study of the matter in order to be convinced. It is enough merely to observe a few of the principles which the wisest of God's messengers have been uttering for centuries.
For instance: Did Christ have a "poverty mentality" when he defined wealth in spiritual terms, telling his followers, "sell all that you have and distribute the money to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven", or when he told them it is necessary to sell everything in order to purchase "one pearl of great price" (i.e. the kingdom of heaven)?
Gandhi writes: “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” I used to think this quote applied to those who were literally and materially starving, but now, it occurs to me that it has a far greater and deeper application. It must be applied, first and foremost, to those who are starved for spirituality, and to whom both wealth and spirit continue to be defined in material terms. It is to them that God appears in the form of "bread"; that is, in material form; in the form of material riches, luxuries and delicacies. In fact, what they are really hungry for is intimacy with God, and for those virtues and higher consolations which stem from a godly life.
In conclusion, let me quote just a handful of wise persons:
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."
~ Epictetus
“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”
~ Voltaire
“Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin.”
~ Erasmus
"We are everlasting debtors to known and unknown men and women... When we arise in the morning, we go into the bathroom where we reach for a sponge provided for us by a Pacific Islander. We reach for soap that is created for us by a Frenchman. The towel is provided by a Turk. Then at the table we drink coffee which is provided for us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African. Before we leave for our jobs, we are beholden to more than half the world."
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“He has committed the crime who profits by it.”
~ Seneca
"[Eat from a clay plate as if it were silver, and a silver plate as if it were clay.]"
~ Seneca
"Prayer reveals to souls the vanity of earthly goods and pleasures. It fills them with light, strength, and consolation, and gives them a foretaste of the calm bliss of our heavenly home."
~ St. Rose of Viterbo
"The only true riches are those that make us rich in virtue. Therefore, if you want to be rich, Beloved, love true riches. If you aspire to the heights of real honor, strive to reach the kingdom of Heaven. If you value rank and renown, hasten to be enrolled in the heavenly court of angels."
~ St. Gregory the Great
“The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers... We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition.”
~ William James
“Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.”
~ Alexander Pope
A number of terms have arisen or been tweaked in order to better articulate this belief system, chief among them being "abundance" and "poverty mentality". It is said that those who do not enjoy material wealth are suffering from a "poverty mentality", which inclines them to refuse material benefits which they see as incompatible with a spiritual life, or which they imagine themselves to be unworthy of. The millions who toil in sweatshops or languish in dry climates without proper nourishment, they say, are merely unaware of their own worth and of the infinite abundance available to them, and to all, through a simple shift in perspective.
Both poverty and abundance are almost invariably defined in material terms. No attention is payed to the sacred teachings of all ages, and to the saints and sages throughout the world who, with one voice, have decried material wealth, and urged us to redefine our conceptions of wealth along more spiritual lines. That is, to see material wealth as spiritual poverty, and to define true wealth as intimacy with God. Patience, calm, humility, generosity, compassion, inspiration, and joy which does not depend on, nor discover itself in, material things, are the true gifts of the spirit, and the primary consolations which any spiritually-minded individual has an interest in procuring.
In order to see through this latest craze in "spiritual materialism", it is necessary only to take an honest look at the matter, without a desire to justify our attachment to those things which gratify the senses of the body, rather than the higher senses of the intellect and the heart. It is helpful, but not essential, to reflect on the claim made by holy men throughout history that, when the soul leaves the body, those attachments we have made to sensory objects and gratifications will be useless and will only weigh our souls down (indeed, we will be like "hungry ghosts", groping at things which only pass through our fingers), while those attachments we have made to more abstract objects of contemplation will serve us well; -- although, at the very highest levels, attachment itself is, ultimately, to be renounced.
First, we should understand that, while the specific manifestations of this trend may be new and unique, the desire to find spiritual justifications for worldly attachments is at least as old as the world itself. No doubt, the rise of capitalism has done much to lend these teachings a semblance of respectability, to undermine many of the long-standing objections toward them, and to engender in people a stronger desire to see such teachings legitimized, -- but the essential thrust of the phenomenon is nothing new. Likewise, misguided teachers like Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, or Osho (the self-styled "rich man's guru"), with his 90+ Rolls Royces, are growing bolder and acquiring an alarming degree of popularity these days, but there have always been, and perhaps there may always be, false prophets of a similar stamp.
The present wave of materialism, cloaked in spiritual garb, appears to have been originated and popularized by the Pluto in Leo generation,-- or, more specifically, by the shadow-side of this generation. The darker side of Leo has always been associated with opulence and excess, while Pluto's very nature is to bring up from the depths of the psyche the darkest impulses, and often to clothe them in language which makes them appear deeper or more spiritual than they actually are. While the positive side of Leo is one of enlightened self-interest, the negative side is one which equates self-empowerment with self-entitlement. Here we have a veritable definition of the expounders of the present materialism.
One book which brings these matters into stark relief would be Chogyam Trungpa's "Spiritual Materialism", but, provided we are honest with ourselves, we need not make a serious study of the matter in order to be convinced. It is enough merely to observe a few of the principles which the wisest of God's messengers have been uttering for centuries.
For instance: Did Christ have a "poverty mentality" when he defined wealth in spiritual terms, telling his followers, "sell all that you have and distribute the money to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven", or when he told them it is necessary to sell everything in order to purchase "one pearl of great price" (i.e. the kingdom of heaven)?
Gandhi writes: “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” I used to think this quote applied to those who were literally and materially starving, but now, it occurs to me that it has a far greater and deeper application. It must be applied, first and foremost, to those who are starved for spirituality, and to whom both wealth and spirit continue to be defined in material terms. It is to them that God appears in the form of "bread"; that is, in material form; in the form of material riches, luxuries and delicacies. In fact, what they are really hungry for is intimacy with God, and for those virtues and higher consolations which stem from a godly life.
In conclusion, let me quote just a handful of wise persons:
"Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants."
~ Epictetus
“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.”
~ Voltaire
“Great abundance of riches cannot be gathered and kept by any man without sin.”
~ Erasmus
"We are everlasting debtors to known and unknown men and women... When we arise in the morning, we go into the bathroom where we reach for a sponge provided for us by a Pacific Islander. We reach for soap that is created for us by a Frenchman. The towel is provided by a Turk. Then at the table we drink coffee which is provided for us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African. Before we leave for our jobs, we are beholden to more than half the world."
~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“He has committed the crime who profits by it.”
~ Seneca
"[Eat from a clay plate as if it were silver, and a silver plate as if it were clay.]"
~ Seneca
"Prayer reveals to souls the vanity of earthly goods and pleasures. It fills them with light, strength, and consolation, and gives them a foretaste of the calm bliss of our heavenly home."
~ St. Rose of Viterbo
"The only true riches are those that make us rich in virtue. Therefore, if you want to be rich, Beloved, love true riches. If you aspire to the heights of real honor, strive to reach the kingdom of Heaven. If you value rank and renown, hasten to be enrolled in the heavenly court of angels."
~ St. Gregory the Great
“The prevalent fear of poverty among the educated classes is the worst moral disease from which our civilization suffers... We have grown literally afraid to be poor. We despise anyone who elects to be poor in order to simplify and save his inner life. If he does not join the general scramble and pant with the money-making street, we deem him spiritless and lacking in ambition.”
~ William James
“Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.”
~ Alexander Pope
Some Sayings
Be still; and behold the superorganic unfolding of the soul's potentialities in God.
How humble is the Lord, our God! His ways are not our ways. He does not clamor to be heard, but whispers to us in "a still small voice" out of the depths of our souls, and every man must put off his own will and listen intently if he is to hear the humble promptings of the Lord.
The Lord, in His goodness, teaches us gratitude for what we have and humility for what we have not.
In the world they are ashamed to speak of Christ, and in Christ they are ashamed to speak of the world.
The heart is a bridle for the intellect, that reason may serve the will in all simplicity.
Love forges a simple path through the forest of the mind.
Strait is the spirit of love in pursuit of the heart of God.
Clear as water is the spirit which cleanses of all superfluities.
The heart desires to be heard and not to conceal itself in a forest of clever words.
Simplicity charms the heart.
Gifts, like children, do not come out of us, but through us.
What I have loved in mortal natures is only the grace which proceeded from God.
In the time it takes to know a man he may become a different man.
How humble is the Lord, our God! His ways are not our ways. He does not clamor to be heard, but whispers to us in "a still small voice" out of the depths of our souls, and every man must put off his own will and listen intently if he is to hear the humble promptings of the Lord.
The Lord, in His goodness, teaches us gratitude for what we have and humility for what we have not.
In the world they are ashamed to speak of Christ, and in Christ they are ashamed to speak of the world.
The heart is a bridle for the intellect, that reason may serve the will in all simplicity.
Love forges a simple path through the forest of the mind.
Strait is the spirit of love in pursuit of the heart of God.
Clear as water is the spirit which cleanses of all superfluities.
The heart desires to be heard and not to conceal itself in a forest of clever words.
Simplicity charms the heart.
Gifts, like children, do not come out of us, but through us.
What I have loved in mortal natures is only the grace which proceeded from God.
In the time it takes to know a man he may become a different man.
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