Reading 205, from Willa Cather
July 24, 2008
Art and religion (they are the same thing, in the end, of course) have
given man the only happiness he has ever had.
This is a very simple fact but over the centuries we have debated and negated this: artists, both writers and visual creators, are deeply religious people. St. Thomas Aquinas says the same thing about the interchangeability of art and religion. The Catholic Liturgy, for example, is High Drama…Cather is a very sensitive writer. Read her!
Reading 204, from Larry Winget
July 23, 2008
“Remember: Money
comes to you exactly as it goes from you. If it is hard for
you to open your hand to let go of your money, then it will
be equally hard for you to open your hand to accept more money.”
“But things cost
so much!”
“The problem is
not that things cost too much, the problem is that you can not afford
them. Do not gripe about what things cost. You can
not do one thing about it. You can, however, do something
about how much money you have. That is your real gripe
anyway, right? You are not happy with how much money you have
and you are blaming prices? Does that make any sense to you?
How much money you have is your fault. Fix that and
you will not care what things cost.”
Shut Up, Stop Whining, and Get a Life: A Kick-Butt Approach to a Better Life
Reading 203, from Oprah Winfrey
July 19, 2008
The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work.
Reading 202, from Che Guevara
July 18, 2008
Many will call me an adventurer - and that I am, only
one of a different sort: one of those who risks his skin to prove his
platitudes.
At
the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a
great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this
quality.
Che Guevara
Though I do not subscribe to the violence and the atheism of Che, yet I cannot help think him to be more with God than so many of us who profess Faith in God. Long live Che, & the revolutions of the heart.
Thanks for the Image!
Reading 201, from Benjamin Franklin
July 17, 2008
My notes:
Wake up, you need dough to read what you are reading right now. Often our distrust of wealth springs from our distrust in our own abilities to earn and live independently. Stop being a leech on society, your parents or even social security. Sheesh!
Thanks for the Image
Reading 200, from God
July 17, 2008
The Lord raises the poor out of the dust, and lifts up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory.
Time and again the religious Scriptures of the world tell us of social injustices, how the poor are pulverized by the march of the rich and famous:
OT
& unfortunately for us the recalcitrants, there is no short-cut. the message is clear: unless we help our fellows, we are doomed.
Thanks for the Image.
At 3am, I ramble
July 17, 2008
It is 3 am and I can’t sleep. The ticking of the fan overhead and the sorry spectacle of my life before me!
The mysteries of life become clearer to me; at the end of the day I have only myself and a silent, cooling world indifferent to my sorrow. God does not speak; only physical discomforts and the need to take sleeping pills are real. Where are all the great philosophies consoling us? Where indeed are human touches? Only, the over-awing sense that all is vanity and this blogging, a vanity of vanities…do I touch anyone and even if I do, what then? No matter, the struggle does not availeth.
Amen.
Thanks for the Image!
Reading 199, from Anonymous
July 16, 2008
One day a man was sitting in his office on the 19th floor of a building. A man came running into his office and shouted, “John, your daughter, Anna just died in an accident right opposite this building”
The gentleman was in panic. Not knowing what to do, he jumped out through his office window.
While coming down, when he was near the 14th floor he remembered he didn’t have a daughter named Anna. When he was near the 7th floor, he remembered he was not married yet.
When he was about to hit the ground he remembered he was not John.
Reading 198, from Rajneesh Osho
July 10, 2008
[Someone wants to be closer to Osho. She says: Sometimes I feel very distant from you...]
Two things to be understood. One: you only feel distant sometimes because you are coming very close. People who are distant never feel they are distant – they have nothing to compare with. Because sometimes you come very close, that’s why you can feel that sometimes you go very far. It is a good sign, a happy indication, and it happens only to those who come very close, otherwise not.
You cannot remain close continuously, that’s true, because that will become unbearable; one can contain only so much joy. Slowly slowly you will contain more; then you will remain more and more close. But naturally, there is a rhythm: you come close and then you go away, you come close then you go away. Going away helps you to absorb me; otherwise when will you digest? One cannot sit at the dining table continuously and go on eating and eating and eating. One needs a few hours’ break – at least a six to eight hour gap between two meals, mm? Otherwise you will go mad and you will become spiritually fat… which is more dangerous than physical fatness! Don’t be worried!
The Madman’s Guide to Enlightenment
My notes:
Rajneesh Osho has his followers and his scorners. Last year I had visited his Ashram at Pune and was instantly repulsed by the way money speaking the loudest there. Everything seemed so artificial and gaudy to me. The poor are unwelcome here. As if the worst of the Hippies combined with a mockery of the East lives here. It seemed to me that the high ideals of Tantra have given way to mere debauchery here. But then I confess to possibly having a low level of intuitive spirituality. Believers need only to discard my opinion as so much drivel from someone innately blind.
I’d read Osho anytime rather than setting foot in that Ashram every again! God forgive me for judging, but I can’t help but be human.
Oops, they call the Ashram, a Meditation Resort!
Reading 197, from The Exorcist
July 9, 2008
…There’s no other explanation for some of the things [that were done]. Like the priest who had eight nails driven into his skull…. And there were seven little boys and their teacher. They were praying the Our Father when soldiers came upon them. One soldier whipped out his bayonet and sliced off the teacher’s tongue. The other took chopsticks and drove them into the ears of the seven little boys. How do you treat cases like that?
Alluded by William Blatty in his cult-classic The Exorcist .
My notes:
We cannot and should not ingnore the evil which walks in our midst. Evil is real and needs a response from us. Depending on our reactions or indiffirence to it, we shall be held responsible…
