A Whole Years Quota

I was digging through some archived bits looking for the progenitor of a story currently bubbling up through my grey and came across a place where I had jotted down this:

"Bread for myself is a material question, but bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one." -- Jacques Maritan

I don't know where I came across it, though I'd put money it was an article by Chris Hedges, as I am not otherwise at all familiar with Mr. Maritan.

Curious about him, I Wikied him, then went looking for other of his quotes for a quick sense of what words of his had landed in the hearts of the world.

I wouldn't normally do this, at least not without digging a bit deeper into things myself, but I found myself sparked by some of what I found, so I'm going to put them here for now:

  • Let us not go faster than God. It is our emptiness and our thirst that He needs, not our plentitude.

  • God does not ask for 'religious' art or 'Catholic' art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth

  • To redeem creation the saint wages war on the entire fabric of creation, with the bare weapons of truth and love.

  • We do not need a truth to serve us, we need a truth that we can serve

  • The first step to be taken by everyone who wishes to act morally is to decide not to act according to the general customs and doings of his fellow-men.

  • God's love causes the beauty of what He loves, our love is caused by the beauty of what we love.

  • Every work of art reaches man in his inner powers. It reaches him more profoundly and insidiously than any rational proposition, either cogent demonstration or sophistry. For it strikes him with two terrible weapons, Intuition and Beauty, and at the single root in him of all his energies... Art and Poetry awaken the dreams of man, and his longings, and reveal to him some of the abysses he has in himself.

  • We don't love qualities; we love a person; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as their qualities.

  • A man of courage flees forward, in the midst of new things.

  • The poet knows himself only on the condition that things resound in him, and that in him, at a single awakening, they and he come forth together out of sleep.

The Nature Of A Millstone - WIP

The constant nature
of his disappointment,
however quietly expressed;
The way it sheered
between hurt and anger;
The way grey eyes,
such a joy for her
in their passion and mirth,
would cool,
withdrawing acceptance,
leaving her bare
vulnerable;
The warm timbre
of playful words
sharpening,
cutting at her worth,
unmooring him
from her embrace;
The way it left them both
alone
in the same rooms
breathing different air.
The constant . . .
(Why wasn't it his grace?
his kindness?
his love?)
. . . disappointment.

Stray Thoughts From A Butterfly Net

At every opportunity
look strangers in the eye
and smile.
Smile like you love them.
In fact, go ahead and love them,
then smile
to let them know.

When you find yourself rising,
in any way at all,
work hard to lift
those around you, too.
Remember how they
once lifted you.
Make it a point
of your good fortune
to not leave anyone behind.

Disappointment
is the sharpest blade:
don't wield it against anyone.
Ever.

All success
is made of sincere failure.
Fail as often as you can,
gracefully,
gratefully,
joyfully.
Make it a part time job.
Then your other part time job
can be success.

Believe.
Fight.
Love.

"If I Were Tall Enough To Talk To Trees" (I probably wouldn't say this . . .)

They have fed your rage; your self righteous appetites slaked on their weakness and despair. You have devoured their generations and used the blood to water the foundations of your ease; built a world of their bones and denied their progeny access to it's riches.

But the fetters have grown weak under the strain of enduring patience, chains snapped by unbending will. The artifice of your poisoned theophany was never going to be enough to contain the truth of them. Not any of them. It was only a matter of time before they came for what was owed.

Be grateful, you vultures and cannibals, that they come having risen above your calumny, that they seek not the vengeance and retribution you would howl and bay for. Be grateful they come only for justice.

"Who Holds Your Hand?" - MG - WIP

Margaret’s eyes flashed at Corr. “I am NOT afraid of the ‘dark truths’ about myself. The only way I have to move forward is seeking out and embracing those truths in hopes of transforming them into something brighter.”

She was startled to see a somber softening in Corr’s features, a dampening of the constant hunger and hate scarring his mouth and eyes. “What I am afraid of,” she lowered her voice and defiance, “terrified of, in truth, is facing those truths alone.”

"Sometimes, Roxanne, You Should Fear The Worms"

They come at your brain with their razor edged words and stabby phrases. They're driven to burn the images in their minds onto your optic nerves, unhinging the way you perceive everything. Permanently.

Impatient with their visions, even more impatient with your lack; there is a violence in the way they communicate, the gunfire staccato of verbs; hollow point adjectives meant to blow jagged craters in the sense of civility and decorum we hide behind. They want you as rabid and savage as they've become in the grip of their dark, poisoned muses.

Warren Ellis. Hunter S. Thompson. Harlan Ellison. As shameful as it is, I love them for their rage and they way it shapes their language.

"I am the sum of my commitments, or in other words, I am what I choose to stand up and be counted for, and those choices define me." — Martin Buber

If I am to escape aspects of things I have become; If I am to improve the way I live and love and act, what a tool it is to examine all the things I have committed myself to, trading those promises to ego and destruction for new ones of grace and community.