Category: Other Writings

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hope Other Writings

Sentences on hope

Supernatural hope is the virtue that strips us of all things in order to give us possession of all things.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sentences on Hope

We’ve had a theme of sorts running for a good bit of this year on Thomas Merton’s reflections on what love is and isn’t. We’ll be switching now to the topic of hope. As we’ll see, hope may not be anything like we’d expect it to be, today’s quote being a jarring example. Merton will push us to examine our hearts in ways that maybe we haven’t before:

  • What do we hope for?
  • What do we hope in?
  • What does this mean for our soul?
  • What does hope that is good for us look like, feel like?
  • What does it accomplish in us and in God’s kingdom?
  • Do we have reason to hope for this kind of hope?

I sincerely hope this series is something you can connect with, something that speaks to you where you are and challenges you and gives you maybe a hope that’s been missing for awhile or maybe that you can’t remember ever having before.

Grace and peace…and hope…to you…

dw

p.s. Here’s a page that lists all posts on the topic of Hope: Pages on hope

p.p.s. Here’s a listing of some past posts on the topic of Love:

 

Photo by Stephen Walker on Unsplash
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Other Writings

Neon-lit pain

 

We draw near to him by following him even on clumsy and reluctant feet and without knowing more than two cents’ worth at first about what is involved in following him — into the seventy-five-mile-an-hour, neon-lit pain of our world.

Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “The Sign by the Highway”

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Music Other Writings

Even their virtues were burned away

smoke in dark room

I recently finished reading the complete short stories of Flannery O’Connor. Her stories have always been a mystery to me, but I love her writing. Today I’m sharing an extended quote from one of my favorites, Revelation.

I’m also sharing some music I posted some time ago on my other site, dwpianomusic.com. The piece is called The Strongest Prayer I Know. The third “movement” of that piece is, in my mind, firmly tied to and inspired by this passage from O’Connor. It is the victory recessional, a cortege for all whose shortcomings and sufferings in this life are finally burned away as they climb through the “field of living fire…upward into the starry field…shouting hallelujah.” In my imagination, included (maybe at the very front) are the “little ones” I refer to in that post.

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Other Writings

No safe place

sliver of light falling on hair of woman in the dark

 

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of humankind…this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart.

Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons, “The Face in the Sky”

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Other Writings

The good thing about weakness

hands holding head of infant

 

We will see that we are human, like everyone else, that we all have weaknesses and deficiencies, and that these limitations of ours play a most important part in all our lives. It is because of them that we need others and others need us.

— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

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