A problem is something which I meet, which I find completely before me, but which I can therefore lay siege to and reduce. But a mystery is something in which I am myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as a sphere where the distinction between what is in me and what is before me loses its meaning and initial validity. -- Gabriel Marcel
The majority of mankind is lazy-minded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith. -- T.S. Eliot, Introduction (1931), Pascal's "Pensees"
If you really enquire about God, not with mere curiosity, not, as it were, like a spiritual stamp collector, but as an anxious seeker, distressed in heart, anguished by the possibility that God might not exist and hence all life be vanity and one great madness -- if you ask in such a mood as the man who asks the doctor, "Tell me, will my wife live or will she die?"-- if you ask thus about God, then you know already that God exists; the anguished question bears witness that you know.
-- Emil Brunner, "Our Faith"
At
LiturgicalCredo, "contemporary stories of faith and doubt." Member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses.
The liturgy is essentially not the religion of the cultured, but the religion of the people. If the people are rightly instructed, and the liturgy is properly carried out, they display a simple and profound understanding of it. For the people do not analyze concepts, but contemplate. The people possess that inner integrity of being which corresponds perfectly with the symbolism of the liturgical language, imagery, action and ornaments. The cultured man has first of all to accustom himself to this attitude; but to the people it has always been inconceivable that religion should express itself by abstract ideas and logical developments, and not by being and action, by imagery and ritual. --Romano Guardini, "The Awakening of the Church in the Soul"
Visit
LiturgicalCredo, an online literary journal devoted to "contemporary stories of faith and doubt." LiturgicalCredo is a member of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses. Click
here to visit.
43-year-old husband & dad of three daughters; former newspaper editor; former owner of a coffeehouse-used book store-music-art venue. Currently a lecturer in English at Coastal Carolina U. in Conway, SC; Beerman columnist for
Weekly Surge; editor and publisher of
LiturgicalCredo.
Contact me. Learn more.
Mars Hill Audio Journal is like a pre-recorded NPR interview show featuring conversations with authors, thinkers, artists, and other interesting people. Download a free sample on MP3, or listen to select interviews,
here. Or,
subscribe.
Art is the signature of man.
-G.K. Chesterton
Strange Days
