I have come to think that care of the soul requires a high degree of resistance to the culture around us, simply because that culture is dedicated to values that have no concern for the soul.
— Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Note: While there are many things I do not see eye-to-eye with Merton on, this observation is right on the money.
If ever one wished to render the church’s message obsolete and her existence pointless, adopting queerness would seem a most excellent way to do it. Queer theory is the perfect tool for demolishing any “oppressive” dogma or claim to transcendent truth. But if the church has no truth to proclaim, why does she exist? Or, more pointedly, why should anyone bother with her?
— Carl R. Trueman, “Lessons from the Decline of Protestant Churches”
Beginning more than 2,500 years ago, from all quarters of the Greek world men thronged every four years to the sacred grove of Olympia, under the shadow of Mount Cronus, to compete in the most famous athletic contests of history—the Olympian games. During the contest a sacred truce was observed among all the states of Greece as the best athletes of the Western world competed in boxing and foot races, wrestling and chariot races for the wreath of wild olive which was the prize of victory. When the winners returned to their home cities to lay the Olympian crown in the chief temples they were greeted as heroes and received rich rewards.
For the Greeks prized physical excellence and athletic skills among man’s greatest goals and among the prime foundations of a vigorous state. Thus the same civilizations which produced some of our highest achievements of philosophy and drama, government and art, also gave us a belief in the importance of physical soundness which has become a part of Western tradition; from the mens sana in corpore sano of the Romans to the British belief that the playing fields of Eaton brought victory on the battlefields of Europe. This knowledge, the knowledge that the physical well-being of the citizen is an important foundation for the vigor and vitality of all the activities of the nation, is as old as Western civilization itself. But it is a knowledge which today, in America, we are in danger of forgetting.
— John F. Kennedy, “The Soft American,” Sports Illustrated (December 1960)
“There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.
— C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
miscellany [ mis-uh-ley-nee], noun 1. a miscellaneous collection or group of various or somewhat unrelated items 2. a miscellaneous collection of literary compositions or pieces by several authors, dealing with various topics, assembled in a volume or book
Only one quote and one article this week...I've let both simmer for a while but would like to share them.