Everyone who enters into the covenant knows the world to be a spiritual arena in which the love of God manifests itself. He walks no longer on a sodden earth and under a gray sky, for he knows that, although all people misunderstand him, he is understood, and followed with loving sympathy, in Heaven.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black
Category: LONELINESS & SOLITUDE
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The sickness of heart that is the lot of all, the loneliness that not even the voice of a friend can dispel, and the grief that seems to stop the pulse of life itself find their final meaning in this compulsion toward the divine. We are sometimes driven out not knowing whither we go, not knowing the purpose of it, but only knowing through sheer necessity that here we have no abiding city, or home, or life, or love, and seeking a city, a home, a life, a love that has foundations.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
On the whole, however, it is not our own liability to death that oppresses us. The fear of it to a brave person, not to speak of a person of faith, can be overcome. It is the fear of it for others whom we love that is its sting. And none of us can live very long without knowing in our own heart’s experience the reality, as well as the terror, of death. This, too, has its meaning for us, to look at life more tenderly and touch it more gently. The pathos of life is only a forced sentiment to us if we have not felt the pity of life. To a sensitive soul, smarting with his own loss, the world sometimes seems full of graves and, for a time at least, makes him walk softly among others.
This is one reason why the making of new friends is so much easier in youth than later on. Friendship comes to youth seemingly without any conditions and without any fears. There is no past to look back at with much regret and some sorrow. We never look behind us until we miss something. Youth is satisfied with the joy of present possession. To the young, friendship comes as the glory of spring, a very miracle of beauty, a mystery of birth; to the old, it has the bloom of autumn, beautiful still, but with the beauty of decay. To the young, it is chiefly hope; to the old, it is mostly memory. The person who is conscious that he has lost the best of his days, the best of his powers, and the best of his friends naturally lives a good deal in the past.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
Withdrawnness, on the other hand, represents the exact
opposite of spirituality; this is because it constitutes the
soul’s revolving around “Me, Myself and I.”For a withdrawn person, worship revolves around himself
not around the Lord. His prayers will not probe the depths
of his soul, soaring with it to the Lord’s heavenly heights.
Rather, he locks himself up within his soul, seeking to submit the Lord to his own self. His prayers therefore only serve to appease his conscience and to elicit praise from others or even from himself. Such a person would not know how to talk candidly to the Lord as His Father. Fasting would only be practised to satisfy the person’s ego. He would talk much about himself seeking his and others’ admiration for his fasting and worship!Finally, when that person confesses, he would neither be broken-hearted nor contrite before the Holy Spirit; rather, he would have lengthy accounts of his iniquities with his Father in confession, with no hint of regret or repentance. His primary objective is to solicit his confessor’s attention and sympathy. He might even go so far as to serve and to evangelize, without knowing how to preach repentance to his own soul. He delights in the appearance of his service, and in everyone’s interest in him and his work.
From Heart to Heart
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty -
This is what we have observed in some youth who purport to be pious, and who believe that their piousness necessitates isolation from family, relatives, colleagues and society…
- At home, we find our young man living in complete
isolation under the guise of “piousness,” having withdrawn from all communications and fellowshipping with members of his family. He does not share in their troubles, happiness, or hardships, and considers himself to be the only person who prays, fasts, sacrifices, and meditates on the Holy Bible, He preaches thus, and despises all deeds of his family members. - Whether he be in an academic or business setting, he
views all people as being “evil.” He flees socialization and is completely withdrawn. - He lives in isolation, as a secluded society within a society; he has no interest in knowing anything about his surrounding community. Strangely enough, when blamed or questioned about his attitude, he considers that criticism to be the cross he has to carry for the Lord. This, in turn, increases his efforts at being withdrawn. Unfortunately all this propels him to be defensive both with others and with himself.
From Heart to Heart
Fr. Tadros Y. Malaty - At home, we find our young man living in complete
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All these afflictions are worse when, through hatred of their toilsome failure, men have retreated into idleness and private studies which are unbearable to a mind aspiring to public service, keen on activity, and restless by nature because of course it is short of inner resources. In consequence, when the pleasures have been removed which busy people derive from their actual activities, the mind cannot endure the house, the solitude, the walls, and hates to observe its own isolation. From this arises that boredom and self-dissatisfaction, that turmoil of a restless mind and gloomy and grudging endurance of our leisure, especially when we are ashamed to admit the reasons for it and our sense of shame drives the agony inward, and our desires are trapped in narrow bounds without escape and stifle themselves. From this arise melancholy and mourning and a thousand vacillations of a wavering mind, buoyed up by the birth of hope and sickened by the death of it. From this arises the state of mind of those who loathe their own leisure and complain that they have nothing to do, and the bitterest envy at the promotion of others. For unproductive idleness nurtures malice, and because they themselves could not prosper they want everyone else to be ruined. Then from this dislike of others’ success and despair of their own, their minds become enraged against fortune, complain about the times, retreat into obscurity, and brood over their own sufferings until they become sick and tired of themselves.
—Seneca, On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It
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We pass one another in the street, the one person looks like the other, and the other just like anyone else, and only the experienced observer suspects that, in that head, there lives a lodger who has nothing to do with the world, but lives out his lonely life confined to quiet domesticity.
Either/Or: A Fragment of Life
Søren Kierkegaard
SO GOOD QUOTES 