For teaching, of course, true eloquence consists, not in making people like what they disliked, nor in making them do what they shrank from, but in making clear what was obscure...

st. augustine, on christian teaching, iv.11

If heroes like Goethe and Schiller could not succeed in breaking open the enchanted gate which leads into the Hellenic magic mountain ...

friedrich nietzsche, the birth of tragedy (p. 75)

"hellenic magic mountain" is with no doubt at all one of the five best phrases of all time, by any standard, and under any judge.

In other words, evangelicals seem to be inherently inconsistent, striking a pose at once adaptable and rigid, progressive and conservative, modern and old-fashioned, at ease and at odds with American ideals. The result of these apparent anomalies is a religion that on Sunday is comfortable with the church looking like the world (such as [Contemporary Christian Music]) and throughout the rest of the week insists that the world look like the church (as in family values.)

D.G. Hart

that old-time religion in modern america, pg. 215.

we had an assignment to write the first and last paragraphs of a novel for two declamations. i don't have a name or even a real plot for this, but i knew the feel i wanted. something as dark as poe, as angsty as fitzgerald, as heart-wrenching as graham greene, as metaphor-rich as bradbury, as concise as o'connor. obviously i failed. the question is by how much. the feel of the second part is different because the only end i saw for the story at the beginning was a kiss or a bullet. when the time came, i wanted neither. anyhow. there it is.

first paragraph

The sky was the color of her coffee in the Seattle midnight. Streetlight trapped by clouds, pressed tight against the city’s dirty heaving bosom. I had my collar flipped up to keep the rain out; not that it mattered anyhow. I’d been walking for so many hours that my shirt was soaked beneath my pea coat. My socks sopped as I stepped through the puddles and raindrop curtains surrounding the awnings of lawyers and bail bondsmen. The cigarette I started five or six blocks ago was already burning my lips. I stopped to light another on the doorstep of an apartment complex, alluringly dubbed Bayview Manors in extravagant swoops of neon light. I wondered if any of them could even see the city, what with the newspaper and burglar bars. I stepped away from the flyer in the window that promised me the lifestyle I’d always wanted. I looked up into the downpour. The rain was thick, falling like sorrows on the heads of the just.

last paragraph

Does it ever stop raining in this city? One last cigarette and the coppery taste of blood in my mouth. Smoke is good thing; it gives you something to think about besides pain and at that point the cut on my head was still bleeding down my cheek. I tensed up when a couple sirens squealed and fishtailed around the corner, but they flew by. Should have known nobody would call the cops. Not in this neighborhood. A taxi pulled up next to me. The driver’s window slid down and her face caught the moonlight and spun it back at me in a tired smile. I smiled back – still not used to the idea of a woman taxi driver, much less her. I climbed in the passenger seat, and we wove through the dripping steel of the city. Stores and then lights faded behind as we drove. Now even the rusty clouds have disappeared in the west as we drive faster and faster, trying to make the daylight come sooner, trying to get out of the night.

Again, the death of the Lord is the ransom of all, and by it "the middle wall of partition" is broken down and the call of the Gentiles comes about. How could He have called us if He had not been crucified, for it is only on the cross that a man dies with arms outstretched? Here, again, we see the fitness of His death and of those outstretched arms: it was that He might draw His ancient people with the one and the Gentiles with the other, and join both together in Himself. Even so, He foretold the manner of His redeeming death, "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Myself." ... Here, again, you see how right and natural it was that the Lord should suffer thus; for being thus "lifted up," He cleansed the air from all the evil influences of the enemy. "I beheld Satan as lightning falling," He says; and thus He re-opened the road to heaven, saying again, "Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors." For it was not the Word Himself Who needed an opening of the gates, He being Lord of all, nor was any of His works closed to their Maker. No, it was we who needed it, we whom He Himself upbore in His own body—that body which He first offered to death on behalf of all, and then made through it a path to heaven.

St. Athanasius On the Incarnation 4.25

via claire

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Teddy Roosevelt

props to Ash.H.

For My Mother, On Her Birthday.

Once, when I was in my early twenties, either twenty-three or twenty-four, I remember driving somewhere with Mom. I was depressed. I don’t remember what had depressed me, but I was very sad. Mom and I were alone in the car. Mom could tell that I was depressed and was trying to cheer me up, although I didn’t want to be cheered up. Mom said, “I want some ice cream. Do you want some ice cream? I do.” I told her that I didn’t want any ice cream and Mom continued driving passed the restaurant where she had suggested we get ice cream. “Were you going to get some ice cream?” I asked, as we drove passed. She smiled and said, “No, that’s okay. I don’t want any.” I recall thinking, at that exact moment, that Mom loved me more than I loved her and that she knew this and that it did not bother her. I recall thinking that surely this was what love was— knowing that you loved someone more than they loved you and not being bothered by it. It was a wonderful moment. It was the first time in many years that I learned something very obvious and yet very true about love, and I told myself then that I should always remember that moment, lest I forget what love was.

by The Inimitable Gibbs

something i wrote on the road between Wenatchee and Moscow. while watching one of the more stunning sunsets i've seen. on a Sunday.

to write, one must have been loved. to write well, one must be a lover.

writing about life, now, in the 21st century, is to write about things that have been written about, at best, a dozen times. the better bits of life: the sunsets, the sunrises, the lovers' kisses over morning coffee, they have all been written about too many times to even think about, much less count. but boredom is only done by the bored. it's the trivializing, the quick-to-look-away, the all-too-easily-pleased-by-flashing-things, in short, the cool teenage boys among us, who are the only ones to think that a sunset is a sunset is a sunset.

it's easy to know in your head that each sunset is different. every night a different ray of light hits different water particles at different angles. seems like a ridiculous waste of creative energy and time.

many girls have good legs. it took the wisdom of Solomon to see that the Shulamite's were unlike others girls' because they were carved out of ivory. it took him several chapters to describe them. and you get the feeling that he never really was satisfied with his attempts. he kept going back to the legs with different approaches. and then he gave it up all together. vanity of vanities, indeed.

if you love, you will see. if you want to love, you must see. it's one of those vicious cycles life seems to be full of. if you want to appreciate sunsets, you must watch them. again and again. and to truly watch them, you must appreciate them. you can watch them one way, the way you usually do, or you can watch and choose to appreciate. and, after a few weeks or perhaps, if your soul is still delicate, a few days, you will realize that the sky wasn't quite that shade of pink yesterday, that the clouds weren't fiery like that last week, and that the sun looks more like a drop of God's blood tonight than it did on Monday. when you choose to love something, you get acquainted with it, you understand it, and in the end you know it. even, no, especially in the King James sense of the word.

my father knows my mother well. he knows her like a connoisseur knows his favorite wine, like a student knows his favorite painting, like Adam knew Eve in that time full of blinding wonder and incredulity before he ate the fruit. there is between them all the familiarity of more than half a lifetime spent together and all the nervous joy of newlyweds. my mother once told me that a detective looking for counterfeit currency said, "i look at the real bills all day long so that when i see the false stuff, i know it's different right away." my father knows his wife like that. he's watched her so much, stared so often, lost himself so many times, that when anything changes, he knows.

my Father knows His bride like that, only more. my Father knows His spoken world like that, only more. my Father knows me like that, only more.

if you love it, it will become lovely. but you have to love every good thing about it. every little detail that changes day by day, every little bit that stays constant. and if you do, the whole thing becomes beautiful. that's why our Father is going to win.