Bearing Witness

In the fearful years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months in prison queues in Leningrad. One day somebody ‘identified’ me. Beside me, in the queue, there was a woman with blue lips. She…

Today’s One-Liner (#221)

This is the Akhmatova who, in a friend’s words, could not bear to see another person’s suffering, though she bore her own without complaint. –D. M. Thomas, Introduction to his translation of Anna Akhmatova, Selected…

Be Wary

Once indiscriminate vio­lence becomes welcome, is ­there any limit to that harm? Chekhov suggests: perhaps the greatest brutality comes from humane, well-­educated idealists. –Gary Saul Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions And Why Their…

Today’s One-Liner (#220)

In mental prayer, shut your eyes, shut your mouth, and open your heart. –Saint John Vianney, quoted in Mother Teresa, Everything Starts from Prayer: Meditations on Spiritual Life for People of All Faiths, selected and…

Faith

Mother Teresa of Calcutta did not become an international icon of selfless generosity despite her belief in Jesus Christ, the only Son of God and the unique savior of the world; she lifted the wretched…

Love Is Labor

I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with…

Today’s One-Liner (#219)

If we would only avoid deceiving ourselves, we would find out what to do, where to go, how to live, and do so with clarity. –Leo Tolstoy, Spiritual Writings, edited Charles E. Moore

Deliver Us

Deliver us from that unparalleled sorrow of seeing those we love suffer without remedy. Deliver us from spiritual darkness. Deliver us from anguish, which is doubtless the state of suffering on which the Holy Spirit…