Like the swimming rats in Richter’s experiment, we can survive for only so long without solid ground beneath our feet; if the choices aren’t real, sooner or later we will go under. It’s important, therefore, that we examine our assumptions abou...
People assume because I'm a coffee expert I drink lots of coffee. I can't. It takes me half an hour to brew my perfect cup. Do the math. I simply don't have time to drink more.
We can learn to pay attention, concentrate, devote ourselves to authors. We can slow down so we can hear the voice of texts, feel the movement of sentences, experience the pleasure of words--and own passages that speak to us. (p. 41)
A proper community, we should remember also, is a commonwealth: a place, a resource, an economy. It answers the needs, practical as well as social and spiritual, of its members - among them the need to need one another. The answer to the present alig...
In order to survive, a plurality of true communities would require not egalitarianism and tolerance but knowledge, an understanding of the necessity of local differences, and respect. Respect, I think, always implies imagination - the ability to see ...
Creation is thus God's presence in creatures. The Greek Orthodox theologian Philip Sherrard has written that "Creation is nothing less than the manifestation of God's hidden Being." This means that we and all other creatures live by a sanctity that i...
We still (sometimes) remember that we cannot be free if our minds and voices are controlled by someone else. But we have neglected to understand that we cannot be free if our food and its sources are controlled by someone else. The condition of the p...
The pleasure of eating should be an extensive pleasure, not that of the mere gourmet. People who know the garden in which their vegetables have grown and know that the garden is healthy will remember the beauty of the growing plants, perhaps in the d...
Or you can broil the meat, fry the onions, stew the garlic in the red wine...and ask me to supper. I'll not care, really, even if your nose is a little shiny, so long as you are self-possessed and sure that wolf or no wolf, your mind is your own and ...
To think better, to think like the best humans, we are probably going to have to learn again to judge a person's intelligence, not by the ability to recite facts, but by the good order or harmoniousness of his or her surroundings. We must suspect tha...
My wish simply is to live my life as fully as I can. In both our work and our leisure, I think, we should be so employed. And in our time this means that we must save ourselves from the products that we are asked to buy in order, ultimately, to repla...
The difference between a path and a road is not only the obvious one. A path is little more than a habit that comes with knowledge of a place. It is a sort of ritual of familiarity. As a form, it is a form of contact with a known landscape. It is not...
Art is enchantment and artists have the right of spells. ... The success of later Shakespeare is the success of spells, where every element, however uneven, however incredible, is fastened to the next with perfect authority. The enchanted world shimm...
Give me a person who sincerely wants to commit themselves to being a salesperson, and put them on my team and I will give you a hero. That has always been my mindset as a sales manager, whenever I have been in that position. I believe in people, and ...
I'm a staunch monogamist. In practice, if not in theory. I can't help it. Do I acknowledge the oppressive, regressive nature of sexual exclusivity? Yes. Do I want that exclusivity very badly for myself? Also yes. There's probably some sort of way in ...
We wish to be loved as we ourselves would love. Any other way makes as uncomfortable. We respond with doubt and suspicion. We misinterpret the signs. We do not understand the language. We accuse. We assert that the other person does not love us. But ...
Healing is not a ‘black and white’ process, it’s not even a ‘grey’ process, it more like a; ‘pinky, yellowy, orangy, greeny, bluey and purply’ process with a hint of ‘gold and silver’ and a huge jar of ‘faith
Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.
The present moment is the substance with which the future is made. Therefore, the best way to take care of the future is to take care of the present moment. What else can you do?
In these times of Darkness, I keep dreaming of a better tomorrow, and praying my soul won't be corrupted." These are Gudrun's words and thoughts. She is living in a troubled world, where only the strong can be free. She is a Fantasy character you fin...
We wind our way up the spiral staircase and then down the long hallway that leads to his room. I feel almost like I’m watching the scene unfold from outside my body. My fingers are interlocked with his as he pulls me toward a moment that’s going ...
