None can know how difficult it is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, but those who have tried—tried hard, and have not ceased to try. . . . Demands unknown before are continually being made upon the Christian: it is the ever fresh rousing and calling, asking and sending of the Spirit that worketh in the children of obedience. When he thinks he has attained, then is he in danger; when he finds the mountain he has so long been climbing show suddenly a distant peak, radiant in eternal whiteness, and all but lost in heavenly places, a peak whose glory-crowned apex it seems as if no human foot could ever reach—then is there hope for him; proof there is then that he has been climbing, for he beholds the yet unclimbed; he sees what he could not see before; if he knows little of what he is, he knows something of what he is not.

— thus George MacDonald

To live with regret is to be whole.

The glory

The infinite magnificence

Of small things.

-thus P.E.

The “slippery slope” is when you notice the inevitable conclusions of progressive premises before they’re ready to defend them

-thus EDJCB

Marriage, in what is evidently its most popular version, is now on the one hand an intimate ‘relationship’ involving (ideally) two successful careerists in the same bed, and on the other hand a sort of private political system in which rights and interests must be constantly asserted and defended. Marriage, then, has now taken the form of divorce: a prolonged and impassioned negotiation as to how things shall be divided. During their understandably temporary association, the ‘married’ couple will typically consume a large quantity of merchandise and a large portion of each other.

-thus Wendell Berry

I am the Way, the Story, and the Life

-SV translation (loose)

Christ’s character in the gospels is very consistent – he’s generous to those who ask him for help, withering to those who accuse or contradict him whatever you understand “meekness” & “loving your enemies” to mean, you have to contend with an imperious & disagreeable Christ.

besides reminding the Samaritan woman that she was a serial fornicator, Christ responds to her (gentle) attempt to debate with him by telling her she doesn’t know what she’s talking about & her religion is wrong he loved the Samaritan woman; this was a loving thing for him to do

to the extent that there is any conflict in the Church over what it means to be “Christlike”, it is between Christ’s actual living example in the gospels, & a disingenuous & nonsensical misreading of a handful of verses in the Sermon on the Mount

-thus edJCB

The more individual and distinct we become, the more we become like each other.

as ordinary things get better, one must rise to higher things, which induce their own trials.

-plucked from the ether.

I don’t think Neil A. Maxwell said that, but he could have, word for word.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from nature.

***

No evidence of alien species because most advanced species correctly intuit that information is pollution, and cease communicating in patterns.  Their language approaches static, their architecture approaches nature.

-twitter user @ctrlcreep

***

Any sufficiently advanced activity is indistinguishable from ritual. (more…)

If you want the Spirit to come to you, you must be willing to let the Spirit come through you.

The only hard currency is the favor of God and the respect of quality men.

Our challenges demand that we should be supermen of history, capable of resolving the crisis our age and place and constructing the new understanding. Nothing less will do than be iron men and saints.

We should be men with hearts full from the well-springs of tradition, but also with fierce eyes for the coming forms of life that lie over the horizon. We should have a dual orientation: both an immovable rootedness and the most expansive wanderlust.

-thus Rafael M.

Holy Pirate King or bust.

Too many of us practice getting the medal but never practice the sprint.

In courtship and elsewhere, we see and ape the manners and methods of the victory parade and know nothing of the victory.

Sane and insane are orthogonal to true and untrue.  Sane people believe some untrue things.  Some truths are only for the mad.