How long do you expect life to be? No one can guarantee its extent or quality. But temporary pleasures are not worth the eternal consequence. Consider all your deeds within an eternal perspective.
ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM ON REPENTANCE & DEFEATING DESPAIR
Letters to Theodore
Category: TRANSCIENCE
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“The grass is brown on both sides.”
—Fr. Damian Ference -
Since I had already searched outside myself for fulfillment in nearly every possible way, I thought, why not up the ante? I decided to quit my job and sell everything that wouldn’t fit in a suitcase. Then I set out on a journey across three continents in search of my life’s purpose. I wanted to locate the elusive intersection where my unique gifts and experiences collided with something the world needed. I hated when people asked if I was trying to “find myself” because this made me sound like a cliché, but really, that was exactly what I was doing. I was like a little kid on a scavenger hunt, scuttling over rocks and lifting logs, hoping to find something that had been in my pocket all along. Eventually, I did find what I was looking for. I found threads of it in every country I visited (there were seven in total: Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia) during my yearlong odyssey.
The place where I truly came home to myself was much less exotic than expected—my inner, authentic self. She had been waiting patiently for me to put down my suitcase, quit distracting myself with outward pursuits, and return to join her in her natural habitat.
The Irresistible Introvert: Harness the Power of Quiet Charisma in a Loud World
Michaela Chung -
A hermit said, ‘If you lose gold or silver, you can find something as good as you lost. But the man who loses time can never make up what he has lost.’
The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks
Benedicta Ward -
If the path toward heavenly bliss seems difficult, compare it with the path toward earthly happiness, and you will see that the path toward earthly happiness is not really easier at all. Just observe how much people toil to amass earthly things, how many disappointments, fights, sleepless nights and deprivations they bear. Or remind yourself of how much effort and expenses it takes to achieve some meaningless and fleeting pleasure! And for what? Instead of the expected happiness, you are left with disappointment and weariness. When you carefully examine the heart of the matter, it becomes evident that people stay away from the Heavenly Kingdom not because the path to it is more difficult than the other paths of this world, but because it appears that way to them.
—St. Innocent of Alaska, The Way Into the Kingdom of Heaven -
“Much time had I spent in vanity, and had wasted nearly all my youth in vain labour.”
—St. Basil the Great -
By design, we must fully live the life that only we can live. Every person that lives less than his or her potential is limiting all human potential because that person is not offering the world the fullness of his or her true self.
More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity
Jeff Shinabarger
SO GOOD QUOTES 