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Jul. 31st, 2006 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mlknchzThere were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been: a people busy and powerful, knowledgeable, ambivalent, important, fearful and self-aware; a people who scheme, promote, deceive and conquer; who pray for their loved ones, and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time -- or even knew selflessness or courage or literature -- but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There never was a more holy age than ours, and never a less.
There is no less holiness at this time -- as you are reading this -- than there was the day the Red Sea parted, or that day in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as Ezekiel was a captive by the river Chebar, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of God. There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha's bo tree. There is no whit less might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said "Maid, arise" to the centurion's daughter, or the day Peter walked on water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree. In any instant you may avail yourself of the power to love your enemies; to accept failure, slander, or the grief of loss; or to endure torture.
-Annie Dillard
There is no less holiness at this time -- as you are reading this -- than there was the day the Red Sea parted, or that day in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as Ezekiel was a captive by the river Chebar, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of God. There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree by your street than there was under the Buddha's bo tree. There is no whit less might in heaven or on earth than there was the day Jesus said "Maid, arise" to the centurion's daughter, or the day Peter walked on water, or the night Mohammed flew to heaven on a horse. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in a tree. In any instant you may avail yourself of the power to love your enemies; to accept failure, slander, or the grief of loss; or to endure torture.
-Annie Dillard
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Date: 7/31/06 04:06 pm (UTC)presents
Date: 7/31/06 04:24 pm (UTC)makes it easier to be in the present and listen to yr inner wisdom, lodged in the heart like a pearl slowly growing from struggle, long enough to act on it rather than acting from yr Monkey Mind (or Pan mind, if you will).
i don't always succeed, but no one does.
it's trying and learing from the process that's important, i think.
Re: presents
Date: 7/31/06 05:01 pm (UTC)Re: presents
Date: 7/31/06 09:10 pm (UTC)i think there are alot of functions going on there, some are functional and some are not.
the relationship between what inventors think is possible, and science fiction, for example, is totally problematic and interesting to me.
ah and Don Quixote is a GREAT example of litrature written about exactly what yr addressing.
ooh, and i watched this great series on PBS about Irish history where the narrator pointed out that it is very Irish to be fully aware that history is what we believe was the past in our present.
hahaha, this sentence:
Date: 7/31/06 09:13 pm (UTC)i'm not even gunna bother trying to make it more sensical.
in my head dysfunction is still a function.
and i like being illustrative.