Category Archives: quotes

Gleanings – The Vocabulary of Artists

art, culture, quotes, ,

Fr Patrick pantocrator domeTo convey to our imagination an abiding sense of the world’s goodness and givenness, artists require a vocabulary capable of such representation. Many of the conventional aesthetic resources of the contemporary arts are well suited to expressing anxiety, alienation, chaos and violence, but are not as capable of evoking innocence, simple purity, or quiet delight. (I’m more and more convinced that the omnipresence of relentless rhythm sections, even in love songs, is an expression of the mechanistic and brutish presuppositions of a culture convinced that all life forms are the end-result of a mindlessly competitive process of mere survival.)

–Ken Myers

“From Heavenly Harmony” in Touchstone Nov/Dec 2014

Not a system in intellectual forms.

quotes,

“Our Lord had no design of constructing a system of truth in intellectual forms. The truth of the moment in its relation to him, The Truth, was what he spoke. He spoke out of a region of realities which he knew could only be suggested—not represented—in the forms of intellect and speech. With vivid flashes of life and truth his words invade our darkness, rousing us with sharp stings of light to will our awaking, to arise from the dead and cry for the light which he can give, not in the lightning of words only, but in indwelling presence and power.”

― George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons

Only a certain number of times.

quotes,

“We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.”

Paul Bowles in The Sheltering Sky

He feeled okay.

friends, quotes

This conversation occurred a couple of years ago between a friend and her little boy who is now in Kindergarten; I waited this long share it because I kept forgetting to ask his mom if I might. I’ve posted the whole interview, but if you want to see pictures of him and all his brothers, here is a link to the original post. Her blog is more charming every day, because another baby has been added to the family, bringing the total number of cute blond boys to four and increasing the entertainment value and joy of her postings that were already wonderfully heartwarming.

“Zeke, who did you play with today at your class?” 
“I didn’t play with anybody. I just played all by myself.” 
“The whole time?” 
“Yeah, the whole time. Nobody even played with me.
Them just playing with other people.” 
“Did that make you feel sad, or did you feel okay?” 
“I feeled okay. 
Because God is always with me, 
so even if I play all by myself, 
God is with me, 

so it’s okay.”


Zeke’s mom says that he is still her thankful/dramatic child.