Every one must study his own nature. Some of you can sustain life with less food than others can, and therefore I desire that he who needs more nourishment shall not be obliged to equal others, but that every one shall give his body what it needs for being an efficient servant of the soul. For as we are obliged to be on our guard against superfluous food which injures body and soul alike, thus we must be on the watch against immoderate fasting, and this the more, because the Lord wants conversion and not victims.

It comes down to this: you either bet that the world is random and meaningless, or that there is ultimately purpose and meaning to it all. After all, Camus told us that one cannot be a part time nihilist. And methinks in my understanding of this world and the next, that there will be a threshold dealt to every soul, where he/she must decide to double down on either one hand of cards or another, and the dealer will turn over the card that’s been face down this whole time. My money is on the side of meaning, if that was not plain. And I do not suppose that the afterlife is meant for one who cannot decide whether it is all worth it or not. Because that goes a long way in deciding for oneself to make a life worth it or not. This is the true gamble of faith.

[Book.]

Perhaps all these occurrences nowabout is telling me something I’ve suspected at strange moments, notions of which I’ve usually flicked aside. Something is happening in the Dreaming. Time is distorting and giving birth to monsters, the unseen structure of existence revealing itself stranger than anyone ever supposed. In the interpretation of reality, reality is being created. And the imaginary is breaching the borders of this world (though this has been going on for as long as man has invented anything). What shall we make of these strange fires, which burn and do not consume that which it burns? What can we do about the Other place, where all laws break down, where governed purely by faith, magic never obsolesced?

We don’t notice the 99 times it goes right, but the 1 time it goes wrong.

the words have lost the luxury of fiction
have become hard to justify
they slip off the page into darkness
darkness that does not sleep
the echo is muffled by all the distances
nothing to report but silence
the dream of which, too smooth to grasp
bled into the morning coffee
and time, too high to understand
beginning again at every blink
is spelling death in the corner of the eye

[Book.]

I sometimes think that crises are invented just to bring out what we fear ourselves to be. Sometimes that is the hero. I have also noticed that in times of great sadness or great happiness, we care not about the scenery. It is only when we are caught in a grinding repetition of days upon days, where we feel neither high nor low, that we desire the scenery to change. A disaster is one of the divine answers to this call: it is a (dramatic) change in scenery, and we didn’t even have to go anywhere to get it. I have another, related thought: Is the world going to kick me out, sometime soon? This should be interesting, because I always have wondered what is out there, beyond the solid things. It would be a change in scenery worthy of an angel’s travels. What would that make me?

And oh, when I’m old and wise
Bitter words mean little to me
Autumn winds will blow right through me
And someday, in the mist of time
When they asked me if I knew you
I’d smile and say you were a friend of mine
And the sadness would be lifted from my eyes
Oh, when I’m old and wise

– Alan Parsons Project

Max Ernst: Fruit of a Long Experience

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I am far from the light, if it can be believed. The light is close to me, if it can be believed. The light is everywhere, after all, but unseen, like all things that are eternal. If it can be believed, there is an eye that watches over all of us, even as we suffer, even as we die. But also when we are saved, sometimes in the nick of time, just like in the movies. Sometimes when the brain is lacking in seratonin, we wonder why the light has forsaken us, just like that famous carpenter, or if we ever had known it in the past at all, or if we had just been deluded, after all. I am far from the light, if it can be believed. Because we desire to be secret, and in darkness to do our business, far from the light. The light is close to me, if it can be believed. It shines in the places we want hidden, because sometimes, that is the only way we can be free from these things.

Why hearts must break is no mystery, if being human makes any sense.

there is dreaming that serves no purpose but to wake us up
to emerge into the world with some sense of purpose, a somehow
which higher power we are slaves of, we chose, know of, or not

Verily, we know not what an evil it is to indulge ourselves, and to make an idol of our will… Once I would make much ado, if I saw not the world carved and set in order to my liking; now I am silent, when I see God… is fattening and feeding the children of perdition. I pray God, I may never find my will again.

Sanity is a madness put to good use.
                – George Santayana

He’s the kind of a guy who lights up a room just by flicking a switch.
                – Unknown

If at first you don’t succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.
                – Bill Lyon

It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
                – Oscar Wilde

I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
                – Thomas Jefferson

Can you truly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord? That is to say, can you pray what He would pray? Can you pray and not have the smallest shred of doubt in your heart? For then, you would need only the smallest of faith, and mountains would move aside for you. The inexhaustible Spirit bestows upon whoever seeks the means to do the will of God, the will of love, and to whosoever asks, it shall be given him. We are all of us unworthy of the merest gifts of heaven, and yet we solicit the more from the unspeakable Good. The One sent by God told us that it is His good pleasure to give us all the things we require, and also, that He knows what before we even ask. Perhaps it is we, then, that learn through prayer just what it is we need. Perhaps it is all just, indeed, to learn how to pray in the name of the Lord. To pray as He would pray.

When the evening shadows and the stars appear
And there is no one there to dry your tears
I could hold you for a million years
To make you feel my love

– Bob Dylan

Max Ernst: Approaching Puberty or The Pleiads

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