With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
                – Steven Weinberg

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
                – Thomas Jefferson

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
                – Hubert H. Humphrey

We are none of us infallible — not even the youngest of us.
                – W. H. Thompson

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
                – Christopher Morley

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
                – Carl Sagan

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.
                – Unknown

[Book. The previous is at alquemie.com.]

I wake up, and the world is different. Though the question that comes to mind is a familiar one, and that is an unfortunate thing. Where am I? There is white everywhere. The walls are white, the bed I’m in is covered in white sheets with a white pillow, the curtain, partially open, is also white. There is a window behind where the curtain is closed, which I can tell by the sunlight streaming in, lighting up rectangle patterns bouncing on the folds of the curtain. I have never been here before, or have I? Is it one of those memories where you can’t remember if it really happened or if it was merely part of a dream? I think I must investigate these present surroundings…

Emil Nolde: Autumn Sea VII

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Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal;
While he who walks in love may wander far,
But God will bring him where the Blessed are.

– Henry van Dyke

after the end of the universe, all the impossible things happened
as the light returned to imagining, as the night unveiled its silver gears
patterns revealed the void with which they were all composed of
and time began to change into space, all to occur by their seeing
as love collected the memory of all that didn’t happen, or ever could

I am a believer, a Christian, but there are two things which I roll around in my mind about the faith. I have no problem with the resurrection, or even the virgin birth — the former, in my mind merely a science beyond our knowing, and the latter is an unlikely, but scientifically possible event. One thing is why it seems that Jesus seemed to be predicting an apocalypse very soon after his death (and rise). All the early believers seemed to think He’d be right back, especially Paul. The other thing is whether Jesus was God. The term “Son of God” was generally applied to the king, and did not necessarily mean he was made of the same substance. Jehovah’s Witnesses, in fact, don’t believe He was equal with God. If anyone out there has some good literature that teases these questions out, leave a comment. I’ve done some reading on both, and have yet to come upon something really convincing on either.

When love comes to town I’m gonna jump that train
When love comes to town I’m gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

I was there when they crucified my Lord
I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword
I threw the dice when they pierced his side
But I’ve seen love conquer the great divide

When love comes to town I’m gonna catch that train
When love comes to town I’m gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

– U2

Jackson Pollack: Full Fathom Five

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The idea of “conviction” is complex. It involves the conceptions of authoritative examination, of unquestionable proof, of decisive judgment, of punitive power. Whatever the final issue may be, he who “convicts” another places the truth of the case in dispute in a clear light before him, so that it must be seen and acknowledged as truth. He who then rejects the conclusion which the exposition involves, rejects it with his eyes open and at his peril. Truth seen as truth carries with it condemnation to all who refuse to welcome it.

Have faith in your faith.

[This is a book I’m writing, veeery slowly. Chapters 1-4 are at alquemie.com.]

[Chapter 5.]

I have a dream that I live in a dystopia, whose beginning has been long forgotten and which seems to continue to eternity. I am the secret leader of the resistance, a fact that I do not even let myself in on unless absolutely necessary, for They can read minds, and often do. I am organizing a mass uprising, intricate in its complexity, its scheme — the plan of which grew even through several generations of leaders, the unfinished version I inherited from my predecessor. On the night that everything is to unfold, I see lit up on a large screen where in the world the revolution is beginning. Then the door breaks down, and it is the forces of authority — but as I am overrun, I realize that I am not the real leader, only a diversion, that I am meant to get caught…

I like to watch birds drink from fountains, small pools, anywhere there is water after a rain. They drink until they are satisfied, dipping their heads, little shivers to shake off the chill. I find it fascinating. The birds fly off — I never encounter them again. They will probably remember nothing of the drink, not really; I will remember it better than they, hold it closer, for it is not always that I see the birds so sip. Somewhere in me, there is a place I can go where the birds are, dipping their heads in little waters. Somewhere in me, I can believe nothing is wasted, not even the smallest drink of water from the tiniest of birds.

It is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially embodied, to declare that Christianity, that the Christian faith can do that for the world which the world needs. You say, “What can I do?” You can furnish one Christian life. You can furnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so determined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian Church shall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the world be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor, perplexed phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what Christianity is.

Mordecai Ardon: Testament of a Dead Leaf

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There was a light, but it faded. It was not faith.

There were visions, but they twisted. They were not faith.

There was a feeling, but it was illusory. It was not faith.

Faith was to hold on, when all those things went wrong.

Because I saw that light, had those visions, felt what I felt.

The narrow way is a journey, and rest may only be momentary.

It is a life that leads to life.

Will you indeed be His disciples, and be kind to the point where it is dangerous to be so? Or will you stand instead in safety with those who hold the guns?

time unfolds into a flower with infinite petals
the sky washes away to reveal the silver gears underneath
i stare inside myself so intently that i burst into light

Not to all men, not to any man always does God give complete abundance. To all men sometimes, to some men in long stretches of their lives, come the abasement times, — times of poverty, times of ignorance, times of friendlessness, times of distrust and doubt; but God does not mean that these times should be like great barren stretches and blanks in our lives only to be travelled over for the sake of what lies beyond. To him who, like Paul, knows how to be abased, they have their own rich value. They do for him their own good work. To have our desire set on nothing absolutely except character, to be glad that God should lead us into any land where there is character to win, — this is the only real explanation of life. He that has it may be more than reconciled to living. He may do more than triumph over his abasements. He may make close friendships with them, so that he shall part from them with sorrow when he is called to go to the right hand of God where there is no more abasement, nothing but fulness forevermore.