Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.
Book: Slaughterhouse Five
I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact: that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. (from Pascal’s Pensèes by 17th Century Christian Philosopher & Scientist, Blaise Pascal)
Book: Renovation of the Heart, Pg 174
Western culture is, largely unbeknown to itself, is a culture of rejection. And rejection, no matter how old one is, is a sword thrust to the soul that has literally killed many.
Book: Renovation of the Heart (2002)
I am convinced, please listen my dear friend, in this great land (America) which is now my own, I am convinced, absolutely convinced that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain. Meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure. And that’s why we are bankrupt of meaning in a land of so much.
Speech: The Harvard Veritas Forum (1992)
Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experience(s) that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful. I now look upon them with particular satisfaction. Indeed I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my 75 years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words I say this: If it were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo-jumbo, the result would be not to make life delectable but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable. This of course is what the Cross signifies - and it is the Cross more than anything else that has called me inexorably to Christ.
Quoting: British journalist, Malcom Muggeridge (1903 to 1990)
Quoting: British journalist, Malcom Muggeridge (1903 to 1990)
Speech: The Harvard Veritas Forum (1992)
It was granted to me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts…. That is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me: “Bless you, prison!” I…have served enough time there. I nourished my soul there, and I say without hesitation: “Bless you, prison, for having been in my life!”
Book: (The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956, Vol. 2, 615-617)
The church fills up those suffering that are still lacking to the whole Christ, …. her passion is the extension of Christ’s own passion and therefore an extension of his redemptive victory. By our willing acceptance of suffering, therefore, Christ continues to suffer in us and to work out to its completion through the centuries the effect of his redemptive act for the salvation of the human race performed once for all on Calvary (reference to Dom Bruno Webb, O.S.B., “Why Does God Permit Evil?” [Burns & Oates]).
Book: Spiritual Childhood The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
To offer him, and herself in him, that he might offer himself and suffer in her, and that so the whole redemptive activity of the merciful love on Calvary might be worked out in her own soul–-that is what St. Therese MEANS BY OFFERING HERFSELF AS A LITTLE VICTIM OF THE MERCIFUL LOVE OF GOD: little, because the more wholly she surrenders herself to the grace of her Baptism with the simple dependence of a little child, the more complete will be her offering, her conformity with Christ.
Book: Spiritual Childhood The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
The first secret she (St. Therese) learned was the immense value of suffering. Suffering is the seal of divine friendship.
Book: Spiritual Childhood The Spirituality of St. Therese of Lisieux
Despair is a mortal sin.
Article: May We Not Lose His Kind by Peggy Noonan (A tribute to Wlm. F. Buckley at his death)
Humans beings are simple, predictable clichés. Broken hearts, betrayal, it’s all been done a billion times before. The problem is, every time still hurts like the first. And if you’re lucky enough to recover, you can be sure that just as you finish filling in all the cracks in your life, the next one is starting to open.
TV: Dead Like Me
God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains: It is a megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
Book: The Problem of Pain
The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world; but joy, pleasure and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe but we have plenty of fun and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bath, or a football match have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.
Book: The Problem of Pain
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
A broken leg can be remembered and located: “It hurt right below my knee, it throbbed, I felt sick at my stomach.” But mental pain is remembered the way dreams are remembered — in fragments, unbidden realizations, like looking into a well and seeing the dim reflection of your face in that instant before the water shatters.
Book: The Beast: A Reckoning with Depression
Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they’re too busy with their own. The beautiful ones. The popular ones. The guys that pick on you. Everyone.
TV: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Life is pain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Movie: Princess Bride
All life isn’t hearts and flowers. I wish it was, God knows I do. But life is just as much pain and mess as it is joy and order. Probably a lot more mess than order, too. I guess when you make yourself realize that, you start growing up.
Book: Boy’s Life