A poem by May Sarton in the interim of a rather post less blog season: Now I Become Myself Now I become myself. It’s taken Time, many years and places; I have been dissolved and shaken, Worn other people’s faces, Run madly, as if Time were there, Terribly old, crying a warning, “Hurry, you will be dead before–” (What? Before you reach the morning? Or the end of the poem is clear? Or love safe in the walled city?) Now…
From Merton’s New Seeds of contemplation (emphasis is from the author): Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love. It is reached when a man deliberately turns his back on all help from anyone else in order to taste the rotten luxury of knowing himself to be lost. In every man there is hidden some root of despair because in every man there is pride that vegetates and springs weeds and rank flowers of self-pity as soon as our own resources…
“So some have doubted. But then in turn there were some who sought to refute doubt with reasons. As a matter of fact, the connection was actually this: first of all they tried to demonstrate the truth of Christianity with reasons or by advancing reasons in relations to Christianity. And the reasons fostered doubt and doubt became the stronger. The demonstration of Christianity really lies in imitation. This was taken away. Then the need for “reasons” was felt, but these…