To be opaque and dense with opinion, with passion, with need, with hate, with power, is to be not there, to be absent, to nonexist…This is hell on earth and hell in hell. This is the hell I have to keep out of.
Thomas Merton, 6.22.66 journal entry
Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything! – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
The path to heaven lies through heaven, and all the way to heaven is heaven. – Dorothy Day
To be a witness for God is to be a living sign of God’s presence in the world. What we live is more important than what we say, because the right way of living always leads to the right way of speaking. When we forgive our neighbours from our hearts, our hearts will speak forgiving words. When we are grateful, we will speak grateful words, and when we are hopeful and joyful, we will speak hopeful and joyful words.When our words come too soon and we are not yet living what we are saying, we easily give double messages. Giving double messages – one with our words and another with our actions – makes us hypocrites. May our lives give us the right words and may our words lead us to the right life. – Henri Nouwen
…but only if you’re standing in the eye.
Edge of Atlantic 