• We convert, if we do at all, by being something irresistible, not by demanding something impossible.

    The House by the Sea: A Journal
    May Sarton

  • The saint must not know he is a saint … he is far too busy thinking about other people. His preoccupations are not primarily with his own saintliness—not at all.

    The House by the Sea: A Journal
    May Sarton

  • When I was young death was a romantic dream, longed for at times of great emotional stress as one longs for sleep. Who could fear it? one asked at nineteen. We fear what we cannot imagine. There is simply no way of imagining what has not yet happened nor been described. We live toward it, not knowing … except that intense love of life has to be matched by greater detachment as one grows older.

    The House by the Sea: A Journal
    May Sarton

  • Scenes from a Marriage (1974)

  • He and Paul have won through to such a fertile and fertilizing relationship I almost envy it … and then I think of my solitude and realize again that I am truly married to it and without it would be even more nerve-racked and impossible than I am.

    The House by the Sea: A Journal
    May Sarton

  • Overeating makes people logy in a different way from the apathy induced by too little nourishment, but I feel sure that it takes the edge off perception. Many of us are literally weighed down.

    The House by the Sea: A Journal
    May Sarton

  • this is all inside me, this grief, and I can’t explain it, nor do I want to, to anyone.

    The House by the Sea: A Journal
    May Sarton

  • As soon as she does anything wrong, everybody must know it. Yesterday, not meaning to do so, she tore off a small piece of wallpaper. She wanted to tell her Father immediately, and you would have pitied her to see her anxiety. When he returned four hours later and everybody had forgotten about it, she ran at once to Marie, saying: ‘Marie, hurry and tell Papa I tore the paper.’

    Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux

  • Someone with absolutely nothing to prove, to yourself or to anyone else, and doesn’t require others’ admiration. Someone who has come clean with God in your transgressions and who is, in fact constantly coming clean with him. Transparent to God, you have broken the shackles of self-justification, constantly trying to rationalize your sins. You have attained the humility of accepting God’s love and forgiveness. Your goal is not to impress or to blame, and certainly not to judge anyone. That’s the freedom attained through humility and repentance.

    How to Be a Sinner
    Peter Bouteneff

  • So we have to discern this concept of self-acceptance thoughtfully as well. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh said, in one of his informal talks to his parish, “Accept yourself, as a stone given to a sculptor. Accept how you are and that you need work to reveal the statue, i.e. what you truly can be.” In other words, reconcile yourself to being you, a beautiful creature but a work in progress. Accept also that you must give yourself over to God’s sculpting. Because there are elements that need refining and others that need excision to reveal the genuine you.

    How to Be a Sinner
    Peter Bouteneff