Living in the world, surrounded by your family, you cannot possibly give away all your possessions. So you must aim at finding the golden mean, and strive to keep to it: never turn your back on the world, but see to it that the world does not engross you.
Letters of Elder Macarius of Optina
Category: PARENTS
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Here’s the part that will make you cry. Try to see this moment as though it’s actually in the past, and this person is gone now. You’re remembering this one ordinary moment, in perfect detail, from that precious window of time when your lives still overlapped.
It’s important that it’s an ordinary moment, because those are the kinds of moments that often seem neutral in value. Abundant and unremarkable. You might be tempted to spend it checking your phone.
But if your mind can find that place, even for a just a second, where you see that this might not be so, you’ll break that sense that nothing special is happening.
Then there will be a moment when you come back to reality. And the reality is that the precious, fleeting time when you got to be near this person, the time you’d do anything to revisit, is happening right now.HOW TO CREATE GRATITUDE
David Cain -
People who do not know where they are going or what kind of world they are heading toward, who wonder if bringing forth children into this chaotic world is not an act of cruelty rather than love, will often be tempted to be sarcastic or even cynical. They laugh at their busy friends, but have nothing to offer in place of their activity. They protest against many things, but do not know what to witness for.
—Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer -
Then there is the memory of former days, curses on those who advised the marriage, recriminations against friends who did not stop it; blame thrown on parents whether they be alive or dead, bitter outbursts against human destiny, arraigning of the whole course of nature, complaints and accusations even against the Divine government; war within the man himself, and fighting with those who would admonish; no repugnance to the most shocking words and acts. In some this state of mind continues, and their reason is more completely swallowed up by grief; and their tragedy has a sadder ending, the victim not enduring to survive the calamity.
On Virginity, Chap. 3
St. Gregory of Nyssa -
MA: Having a family seems to be another superpower. Most of the top professionals I know have kids at home. What do you say to people who are afraid that having kids will mess up their career?
MGP: Having kids is what you make of it! There’s a transition period, but you can absolutely adapt them to your lifestyle, including your career. While your scheduling needs may change, it’s amazing how much more productive you become with your time. If you’re thinking about it — go for it!
INTRO LIMITED
THE HEROICALLY DESIGNED LIFE -
Of them all, it was the true love. Of them all, it was the best. That other, that sumptuous love which made one drunk, which one longed for, envied, believed in, that was not life. It was what life was seeking; it was a suspension of life. But to be close to a child, for whom one spent everything, whose life was protected and nourished by one’s own, to have that child beside one, at peace, was the real, the deepest, the only joy.
Light Years
James Salter
SO GOOD QUOTES 