New Year's Resolutions
A Commonplace Post
“And behold, You are near, and deliver us from our wretched wanderings, and establish us in Your way, and comfort us, and say, “Run; I will carry you” -St. Augustine, Confessions
“I came gradually to want to prove nothing” -Gilbert Seldes, The Stammering Century
“I will stay in the fray, in the revel of ideas and risk—learning, failing, wooing, grieving, trusting, working, reposing—in this sin of language and lips” -Gillian Rose, Love’s Work
“What is wrong with being obsessed with trivia? Some have criticized The Sweet Dove for this. What are the minds of my critics filled with? What nobler and more worthwhile things?” -Barbara Pym, A Very Private Eye
“Let us grant (if they will have it so), that they are most obdurate; still they are alive,—they must be doing something, and can they do aught better than try to quiet themselves, and be resigned, and to do right rather than wrong, even though they are persuaded that it does not come from their heart, and is not acceptable to God? They say they dare not ask for God’s grace to assist them. This is doubtless a miserable state: still, since they must act in some way, though they cannot do what is really good without His grace, yet, at least, let them do what seems like truth and goodness” -St. John Henry Newman, “Obedience the Remedy for Religious Perplexity”
“He who does one little deed of obedience, whether he denies himself some comfort to relieve the sick and needy, or curbs his temper, or forgives an enemy, or asks forgiveness for an offence committed by him, or resists the clamour or ridicule of the world—such an one (as far as we are given to judge) evinces more true faith than could be shown by the most fluent religious conversation, the most intimate knowledge of Scripture doctrine, or the most remarkable agitation and change of religious sentiments. Yet how many are there who sit still with folded hands, dreaming, doing nothing at all, thinking they have done every thing, or need do nothing, when they merely have had these good thoughts, which will save no one.” -John Henry Newman, “Promising Without Doing”
“The cosmic savoir-vivre / may keep silent on our subject, / still it makes a few demands: / occasional attention, one or two of Pascal’s thoughts, / and amazed participation in a game / with rules unknown” -Wisława Szymborska, “Distraction”
“A crowded, confused day with a great desire on my part to write on love and the strange things that happen to you in growing in the love of God” -Dorothy Day, Diaries (The Duty of Delight)
“Books in wartime: Labyrinthine Ways. To the End of the World. Kristin Lavransdatter. Master of Hestviken. Jeremiah. 1 Kings. People live, eat, sleep, love, worship, marry, have children, and somehow live in the midst of war, in the midst of anguish. The sun continues to shine, the leaves flaunt their vivid color, there is a serene warmth in the day and an invigorating cold at night. Turn off your radio. Put away your daily paper. Read one review of events a week and spend some time reading such books as the above. They tell too of days of striving and of strife. They are of other centuries and also of our own. They make us realize that all times are perilous, that men live in a dangerous world, in peril constantly of losing or maiming soul and body. We get some sense of perspective reading such books. Renewed courage and faith and even joy to live. And man cannot live long without joy, without some vestige of happiness to light up his day.” -Ibid
“People who are persistent and resolute often achieve their aims without the use of force, but rather by courage joined with intelligence” - Leszek Kołakowski, Is God Happy? Selected Essays
“It is no misfortune to have a specific nature…freedom, in the sense in which we really value it, does not mean total indeterminacy, still less omnipotence. It means the chance to do what each of us has it in him to do—to be oneself, not another person. Though all human ranges overlap, we each have a distinctive range of talents, tastes, and emotional possibilities. The advantage of innate individuality—the positive enjoyment of one’s own capacities—more than outweighs the drawbacks of not being infinitely pliable.” -Mary Midgley, Beast and Man
“He was obsessed with his illnesses, his food and his religious books” -V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas
“Look, the sun in spring is a sort of bribe, you know, and so is a heavy thunder storm or a snowfall. So is a dawn, though not I think a sunset. So is a warm bath or a shower, and a sound sleep. Bribes all, in the conspiracy of everything to continue to exist. You’ve left out the B Minor Mass, Mozart, all kinds of music. Also pleasure in high speeds the deeply comic something to eat or drink, success in an enterprise.” -Renata Adler, Pitch Dark
“They talked more readily than we about large universals such as death, change, fortune, friendship, or salvation; but also about pigs, loaves, boots, and boats…They talk something like angels and something like sailors and stable-boys” -C. S. Lewis, English Literature in 16th Century Excluding Drama
“This power to destroy — to wound, to sever bridges, to end lives — is easily wielded; and we tend to call this real power since it has such an instant, spectacular effect, dependent only on our will. We can all smash a TV set, a computer, a friendship, a marriage. Few of us can build a workable computer or rewarding marriage. Any idiot can wreck what only a genius can make” -Garry Wills, The Kennedy Imprisonment
“I taught myself to live simply and wisely, / to look at the sky and pray to God, / and to wander long before evening / to tire my superfluous worries” -Anna Akhmatova, “I Taught Myself To Live Simply”
“Imagination too has a part to play. It may never have occurred to her that she might run away and join the circus or learn to speak Japanese and take a job in Kyoto. Indeed, if someone were to suggest either of these courses of action to her, her response would be dismissive, because she would be unable to imagine herself as, say, a trapeze artist or an interpreter for tourists curious about Zen Buddhism. Her beliefs and her imagination combine to set limits to what she takes to be possible and so to her present desires.” -Alasdair MacIntyre, Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity
“Now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.” -John Donne, “Sermon II. Preached at Pauls, upon Christmas Day, in the Evening. 1624.”
“We are getting a education this summer, in the humanities, I would say—in love despite fear, in the amazing resilience of the human body. And daily we grow in the determination to cast off trouble like a garment in the heat and keep going, keep living, and living abundantly, with more awareness of each moment and more joy” -Jane Kenyon, A Hundred White Daffodils
“Jack would be moved by our grief, I know, but he would repeat, as he often did, his personal variation on a well-known verse: ‘This is a day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and get on with it.” -Ibid