Filed under: quotes
random quotes by anais nin i don’t want to lose…
Anxiety is love’s greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.
- Anias Nin
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
- Anias Nin
It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
- Anias Nin
I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.
-Anais Nin
Once upon a time, there was a town full of perfect people. They had perfect homes, perfect jobs, perfect families, and were always happy. They never wished for anything other than their wonderfully perfect lives.
Except… none of it was really true. They weren’t actually happy. In fact, they were quite miserable. Each one had his own dark and ugly secrets that they longed to expose and be rid of. Each wished for something different. But, they didn’t know any other way of living except what they had been taught from all the generations who had come and gone in the town before them… they only knew pretending.
One person in the town stayed up later than the others, when everyone else had drifted off to sleep. She would creep outside and look up at the stars, and wonder what the world would be like if she stopped pretending. The idea was generally too frightening to entertain for more than a few minutes… but gradually, she became braver. By spring, she decided that it was worth the risk. She couldn’t be any more miserable than she already was, and she decided that she was done simply imagining a different world. She was going to make her confession. She was going to come clean. She was going to stop pretending.
And then, the revolution began.
I’m Not Sorry
You, and me, and a pot of coffee
You ask me where I’ve been, where I’m going…
Well I guess I didn’t say what you wanted to hear
But I’m tired of the constant fear
That comes with your conditional loveAnd I’m not sorry for letting you down
No, I’m not sorry for letting you down.There’s a bunch of people who’ve been living “pretend”
Where everybody’s perfect
And everybody fits-
Until they talk about their sins.A lot has built up in this lifetime of suppression
But today I’m making this public confession-
… I’m a mess.And I’m not sorry for letting you down.
No, I’m not sorry for letting you down.I can cry, I can bleed
I wish you’d try, so you’d see what I mean
Oh dear friend, I wish you’d live freeI’m not sorry and I’m not trying to be mean
But I can’t apologize for finally coming clean
Yah, I’m finally coming clean.
Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore
Be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified
Follow Christ to the holy mountain
Sinner, sorry and wrecked by the fall
Cleanse your heart and your soul
In the fountain that flows
For you and for me and for all
At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by His blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful scandalous night
On the hillside you will be delivered
At the foot of the cross justified
And your spirit restored
By the river that pours
From our blessed Savior’s side
At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree…
Go on up to the mountain of mercy
To the crimson perpetual tide
Kneel down on the shore be thirsty no more
Go under and be purified
At the wonderful tragic mysterious tree
On that beautiful scandalous night you and me
Were atoned by his blood and forever washed white
On that beautiful scandalous night…
Miraculous night
- Read this poem by Wendell Berry.
- Then, read an excerpt from a sermon by Rev. Virginia Wolfe:
“Ardently, we need to practice resurrection. What does that mean? According to Wendell Berry, we must free ourselves from money’s control. We must “every day do something/ that won’t compute. Love the Lord./ Love the world. Work for nothing./ Take all that you have and be poor.” Look at all the things he tells us to do-all the things that will free us from the addiction of consumerism. Ask yourself, how are these examples of practicing resurrection. What does it mean to “praise ignorance, for what man/ has not encountered he has not destroyed”? Why should we “ask the questions that have no answers[,] . . . plant sequoias[,] . . . [have] faith in the two inches of humus[,] . . . expect the end of the world[, and] . . . Laugh? Why should we “be joyful/ though [we] . . . have considered all the facts”? Why should we “go with . . . [our] love to the fields[, and] . . . lie easy in the shade”? Why should we lose our minds?
Ask yourself, what is resurrection? … After Jesus’ death, he came alive in his followers. They remembered him. They talked about him. They continued in relationship with him, trying to understand what his life had meant for them. As he came alive in them, they came alive. Many of us have had this experience after the deaths of loved ones. They do not leave us in spirit. We continue in relationship. They are alive in us. Realizing this, we return from grief to life. Resurrection, then, is the return to life of what has been lost. So practicing resurrection is bringing to life what has been lost.
In this year, in this country, what has been lost all too often is life. We have replaced it with money. This is Wendell Berry’s point. Rather than live, we compute and calculate. Trying to save our lives, we destroy them and those of others. The message is clear. Life is about freedom and not safety. We must turn away from our obsession with money and resurrect life. All of those actions which Berry encourages us to take are life-giving. They are examples of practicing resurrection.”
* The full sermon can be found here .
by Amy Carmichael
If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting “Who made thee to differ? And what hast thou that thou hast not received?” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I find myself taking lapses for granted, “Oh, that’s what they always do,” “Oh, of course she talks like that, he acts like that,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I can enjoy a joke at the expense of another; if I can in any way slight another in conversation, or even in thought, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I can write an unkind letter, speak an unkind word, think an unkind thought without grief and shame, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I do not feel far more for the grieved Savior than for my worried self when troublesome things occur, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I can rebuke without a pang, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If my attitude be one of fear, not faith, about one who has disappointed me; if I say, “Just what I expected” if a fall occurs, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am afraid to speak the truth, lest I lose affection, or lest the one concerned should say, “You do not understand,” or because I fear to lose my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other’s highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying “Peace, peace,” where there is no peace; if I forget the poignant word “Let love be without dissimulation” and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I hold on to choices of any kind, just because they are my choice, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am soft to myself and slide comfortably into self-pity and self-sympathy; If I do not by the grace of God practice fortitude, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I myself dominate myself, if my thoughts revolve round myself, if I am so occupied with myself I rarely have “a heart at leisure from itself,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If, the moment I am conscious of the shadow of self crossing my threshold, I do not shut the door, and keep that door shut, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I take offense easily, if I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I feel injured when another lays to my charge things that I know not, forgetting that my sinless Savior trod this path to the end, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I feel bitter toward those who condemn me, as it seems to me, unjustly, forgetting that if they knew me as I know myself they would condemn me much more, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If the praise of others elates me and their blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I crave hungrily to be used to show the way of liberty to a soul in bondage, instead of caring only that it be delivered; if I nurse my disappointment when I fail, instead of asking that to another the word of release may be given, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I do not forget about such a trifle as personal success, so that it never crosses my mind, or if it does, is never given room there; if the cup of flattery tastes sweet to me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If in the fellowship of service I seek to attach a friend to myself, so that others are caused to feel unwanted; if my friendships do not draw others deeper in, but are ungenerous (to myself, for myself), then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I refuse to allow one who is dear to me to suffer for the sake of Christ, if I do not see such suffering as the greatest honor that can be offered to any follower of the Crucified, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I slip into the place that can be filled by Christ alone, making myself the first necessity to a soul instead of leading it to fasten upon Him, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If my interest in the work of others is cool; if I think in terms of my own special work; if the burdens of others are not my burdens too, and their joys mine, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I wonder why something trying is allowed, and press for prayer that it may be removed; if I cannot be trusted with any disappointment, and cannot go on in peace under any mystery, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I covet any place on earth but the dust at the foot of the Cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
That which I know not, teach Thou me, O Lord, my God.
