Get with It!
Learn self-conquest, persevere thus for a time, and you will perceive very clearly the advantage which you gain from it. As soon as you apply yourself to contemplation, you will at once feel your senses…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
The United States of Judgmentalism
The fundamental problem with politics is that it is conducted entirely in the voice of The Accuser. Whereas Jesus repeatedly warns us in the strongest possible terms not to judge others, politics, especially American party…
The Venerable Thien Hue
“I am a monk,” says Hue as imperturbably as ever. “I do nothing against the government. I live in silence and I pray. I have been in prison for two hundred days now, for no…
Today’s One-Liner (#346)
Keep your heart at peace and a multitude around you will be saved. –St. Seraphim, quoted in Isaac Slater, OCSO, “Do Not Judge Anyone”: Desert Wisdom for a Polarized World, 76
For JAI
I was out driving around in my ancient PriusListening to some Dylan songs on my CD player Blind Willie McTell“Well, I heard that hoot owl singing” Brownsville Girl“I can still see the day that you…
Are You Sure?
How often have we misperceived the situation, a look, a sound? We need to be detached from our perceptions, because we are not infallible. –Thich Nhat Hanh, Being Peace
For Everything and Everyone
My friends, ask gladness from God. Be glad as children, as birds in the sky. And let man’s sin not disturb you in your efforts, do not fear that it will dampen your endeavor and…
Hermitages
Turns out that all my final favorite writers (Dickinson, Blake, Thoreau) ended up their lives in little hermitages… Emily in her cottage, Blake in his, with wife; and Thoreau his hut… –Jack Kerouac, Selected Letters, v….
If Only…
Grushenka’s fable is in fact a parabolic gloss on Zosima’s often repeated aphorism that all are responsible for all. Had the old peasant woman not kicked away the other sinners who were clinging to her…
From Russia to India
In the East, and especially in India, Tolstoy’s beliefs seem still to be very much alive. Gandhi regarded himself as a humble follower, and his tremendously effective civil disobedience campaign stemmed in large measure from…