Sure I am that Providence holds me in His hands, and nothing can touch me except God allows.

even in the most rational of mind, the passions overtake me
in the depth of thought, we forget why the solutions make sense
where in the dreaming was i ever driven to know, to know?
i cannot map the places where i have been; they all disappear
and sometimes i am lost in the place where i am, anywhere
to imagine the place where i am to be, and have it come true
for there come times when destiny makes its mark on the world
and the passion bear fruit, where the work itself is the magic

Thank you for the laughter, thank you for the tears. Thank you for the fear, thank you for the courage. Thank you for the sunshine, thank you for the storm. Thank you for the darkness, thank you for the light. Thank you for the victory, thank you for the loss. Thank you for the hardship, thank you for the prosperity. For there is purpose therein what you have given to me to experience, and I may even glimpse what meaning in the pleasure and the pain if I see through the eyes of faith. May I never think I am made for either the sorrow nor the elation, but that there is a time for all things, whatever it is that I long for in my heart. Thank you for it all, the good and the bad, for if I am a child of God, it is all to be counted joy.

Sometimes I feel like I don’t know
Sometimes I feel like checkin’ out
I want to get it wrong
Can’t always be strong
And love it won’t be long…

– U2

Georges Braque: The Portugese

Click on the pic for a larger version.

In quiet mystery the everyday things around me reveal some of their underlying forms. All things strangely like one another, and only on some shallow level are they different. Such goes for human beings, too, for us to see if we are able to call everyone brother or sister, as we are supposed to. Once I saw the face of Christ on a streetcorner bum, who was asleep in the city night, a lesson there, if I am to fathom some of the deeper things. Does God truly know the course of every quantum particle? Or does He, too, only deal with the equations of our physics? And the truly splendid things of the world: I saw for an instant how all of it is dust. Useful for a time, like these hands, but to dust, too, shall they all return. And I saw it plain before my mind’s eye, that the only thing that is real is love, that all else is merely illusion. For God is love, and is the I AM…. In quiet mystery the things around me fade as I close my eyes, the mystery not why things disappear, but why they stay at all, in place, for the briefest of moments.

Now since our eternal state is as certainly ours, as our present state; since we are as certainly to live for ever, as we now live at all; it is plain, that we cannot judge of the value of any particular time, as to us, but by comparing it to that eternal duration, for which we are created.

at the end of the rainbow was a rope tied in a knot
one end dug into the earth, the other going up, and up
and when i undid that knot, the sky left the ground behind

Emotion is the flavor of meaning.

There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.
                – Jean Anouilh

I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.
                – Ludwig Wittgenstein

A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.
                – John le Carre

If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
                – Elbert Hubbard

I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
                – Umberto Eco

There is an old Hassidic tale in which a rabbi asks his pupils how they could tell when the night ends and day begins.

“Could it be,” one of his students asked, “when you see an animal in the distance and can tell whether it is a sheep or a dog? “No,” answered the rabbi.

Another student asked, “Is it when you look at a tree in the distance and can tell whether it is a fig tree or a peach tree?” “No,” the rabbi patiently replied.

“Tell us then,” the students asked, “when does night end and day begin?”

The rabbi replied, “It is when you can look on the face of any man or woman and see that it is the face of your sister or your brother. If you cannot see this, it is still night.”

I am vindicated
I am selfish
I am wrong
I am right
I swear I’m right
I swear I knew it all along

– Dashboard Confessional

Max Ernst: The Dark Gods

Click on the pic for a larger version.

the apocalypse comes 15 seconds from now, i can feel it opening
death is gaping to consume me, all three of my inner lives
the despair whirling up within the spirit, crushing the very promise
one endless realization that all the world is ending, just for me
(i find there are some things impossible to forget, or remember)
and in the nowhere there are only these islands left to stand on
that if i think long enough, i am back reliving most of my former life
to dream that i have won, and then somehow to believe it
life goes on, after all of it subsides, the apocalypse to come again

I have no reason to complain of any crosses, because they are the bitter fruit of my sin. Nothing shall hurt us but sin; and that shall not hurt us, if we can repent of it. And nothing can do us good but the love and favour of God in Christ; and that we shall have if we seek it in good earnest. Afflictions are God’s potions, which we may sweeten by faith and prayer; but we often make them bitter, by putting into God’s cup the ill ingredients of impatience and unbelief. There is no affliction so small but we shall sink under it, if God uphold us not: and there is no sin so great but we shall commit it, if God restrain us not. A man who hath the spirit of prayer hath more than if he hath all the world. And no man is in a bad condition, but he who hath a hard heart and cannot pray.

The narrow way is to do things that would gain praise, and hate that kind of praise. Even so, to accept that praise, and not get swelled up with pride. It is when you can do anything, to do the right thing. When the Lord is good to us, to understand it is not for something we are responsible for, but His love is that great, so He loves us when we are undeserving. The narrow way is a bridge on a tenuous path, needing constant attention while we walk it, lest we slip into the darkness below. It is to seek the light with all our soul, but not forget everything else. Let us say, if nothing else, it is a very simple thing, really, and therein lies the rub. All that the narrow way is, is love. And such a simple thing tends not to fit very neatly into our complicated situations. For wide is the gate of destruction: it is everything else that true love is not.

If we truly look at things, what is amazing is not what we ourselves do, or can do. That is very little. What is done for us, upon command, that we take for granted makes us think we can do so much. But in actuality, almost all that we have or can do in this life has been given to us, usually at no price whatsoever. Very few people seem to realize this, however, that if we had to purchase emotion, what cost would even the sadness be. We are less than ghosts in the machine. Truly, we are wonderfully and fearfully made, but it only the smallest part of us we are responsible for, so it is critical that we get those parts right: these are the choices that we make. Understand that if we get those wrong, there is nothing else to say what is the “I” in any of us. By these, therefore, are we judged….

Try it: believe in something until it happens.