Category Archives: quotes

He cannot measure out the Undivided Light.

quotes, theology,

“When I say God, I mean Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the Splendor of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three I think of Him as the Whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of That One so as to attribute a greater greatness to the Rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the Undivided Light.”

-St. Gregory the Theologian, On Baptism

Sowing in late winter…

church, my garden, quotes, ,

…or is it early spring?

The best time to plant some of these seeds would have been two or three weeks ago, but I was otherwise busy on the mild days, and when the weather turned colder I wimped out. But this week, at the end of a day when the sun was shining and my hands didn’t hurt from the cold, I was able to organize my thoughts and my packets enough to get some seeds into the ground. The rain has returned, blessed be God, and has watered them thoroughly.

Calendula plants and stock are growing in a couple of places in the garden; after the hardest winter battering, the stock are covered with little flower buds. The lemon tree having been pruned to a less gangly form, it’s showing off its dozens of fruits to better effect. I love the two plum trees! If they never produced another plum, I’d still count them well worth having, for the way their blossoms brighten these cloudy days and remind me that every hour brings us closer to summer.

Working in the garden through only the late afternoon made me incredibly happy. When I came in the house I could only pray “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

It’s been quite a week, indescribable for the most part, at least, in the way I would prefer to write about things. My report must be vague: The days have been full of friends, those Lenten services that are characterized by bright sadness, and the mercies of God new every morning. Mostly I came here to write about my garden that He uses to bestow on me His also indescribable gifts…

Here ends another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands
and the great world around me. Tomorrow begins another day. Why am I allowed two?

-G.K. Chesterton

Knowledge and rationalizations.

books, humanity, quotes, , , ,

Today in the Orthodox Church we remember The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise.

“The knowledge of Good and Evil, no matter how systematically or thoroughly consumed, will by no means make us gods. Rather, modern ethics, modern psychotherapy, and modern political ideologies all tend to produce not superhumans but pitiable slaves to the rationalizations generated by our distorted human desires. In order to gain control over the world, we have been too willing to renounce essential aspects of our own freedom.”

― Timothy G. Patitsas, The Ethics of Beauty

Will I finish reading The Ethics of Beauty during Lent? Maybe not, but I will at least keep plugging away at it. It’s full of insights about the order of Creation, including the humans, of course — and is infused with much wisdom and hope.

Under the thick layer of rubbish.

love, quotes,

“In my relationship with others, I should like to plunge deep into every situation, entering the very soul of each person who comes to me, speaking to him as if he were the person most dear to me in the entire world. But where are we to find a love so great as to embrace everyone? How are we to love the foolish, the conceited who fuss over their mean little futilities, when (to make it worse) we are convinced that paying them attention only does them harm? I suppose that each of us needs to be a saint in order to grasp, through the thick layer of deposited rubbish, the element in each person which is unique and cannot be repeated – his soul – and to address that alone.”

-Fr. Alexander Elchaninov, The Diary of a Russian Priest