cognitive corruption suggests

"We no longer dare to believe in beauty
 and we make of it a mere appearance
in order the more easily to dispose of it.

Our situation today shows that beauty
demands for itself at least as much courage
 and decision
 as do truth and goodness,
 and she will not allow herself to be separated
and banned from her two sisters
without taking them along with herself
in an act of mysterious vengeance.

We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name
 as if she were the ornament
 of a bourgeois past -- whether he admits it or not --
can no longer pray
 and soon will no longer be able to love."

-hans urs von balthasar

facundo therapy

You are not depressed... just distracted,
 distracted by this life
 that overwhelms  you.
Distracted from the life
 that surrounds you,
 dolphins, forests, seas, mountains, rivers.

- facundo cabral  + july 2011

chased by monsters at dead ends

I didn't go out looking to be famous.
I'm just a musician.

+ amy winehouse (july 2011)

by way of digress

[Modigliani's] colour is sensuously, mysteriously (how did he achieve that glow and bloom?) articulated to the present, to the tangible and to what extends in space, and it is also emblematic. The radiance of the body becomes an emblematic field of intimacy. It is at one and the same time body, and the aura of that body as lovingly perceived by another.

John Berger
Modigliani's Alphabet of Love

blip

Rain-drops. Each
makes a point
of silence.

- Cid Corman +2004

enlightenment

"The person who finds his homeland sweet is a tender beginner.
He to whom every soil is as his native one is already strong.
But he is perfect to whom the entire world is a foreign place."

- A 12th century monk.

the economy of detachment

Having put your hope in Christ
who provides for all creation
and nurtures it,
keep away from all unjust gains,
and do not be too attached even to honest income.
Put it to good use
and let the poor share in it as much as possible.

- St. Gregory Palamas

this sounds a little like barack obama's idea
of spreading the wealth...how can we presume to be a
christian country without doing that?