Category: Commonplace book

One-Pointed Attention

Make an orderly series of your different studies, so as to throw yourself into them completely. Let each task take entire hold of you, as if it were the only one. That was Napoleon’s secret;…

Today’s One-Liner (#275)

Though meditation you can learn to stand back from the heat of mental processes that are raging out of control.  –Sri Eknath Easwaran, Seeing with the Eyes of Love: Reflections on a Classic of Christian…

Resurrecting the Frozen Heart

“Brother, in these past two months I’ve sensed a new man in me, a new man has arisen in me! He was shut up inside me, but if it weren’t for this thunderbolt, he never…

Today’s One-Liner (#273)

I looked with deep tenderness, and for the first time in my  life I consciously received the first seed of the word of God in my soul.  ––Starets Zosima, in Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Liturgical Impermanence

Much of the excitement of guitar Masses, living-room Masses, sport-shirted celebrants, readings from Eldridge Cleaver, coffee-and-donut Eucharists, and post-communion dancing has depended on the dramatic clash of the old and new, the unexpectedness of it…

Today’s One-Liner (#271)

We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinion, because we very often differ from ourselves. –Samuel Johnson, Adventurer 107, cited in Paul Fussell, Samuel Johnson…

Today’s One-Liner (#270)

I became and remain convinced that life has never been more thrillingly worth living than it was when Francis, Thomas, Innocent III, and Dante stalked this earth. —Ross J. S. Hoffman, in The Road to…

Paying Close Attention

Francis showed great tenderness for all of God’s creatures, however humble. Remembering the Psalmist’s words: As for me, I am a worm and no man, he would pick up any earth-worms he found in his…

Dictionary Bliss

Most of  us  prefer novels, biographies and memoirs. However, there are always those, like Malcolm X or Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who see dictionaries as approachable texts and find magic in their method. –Henry Hitchings, Defining…