This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
This devalues the experience of suffering.
Enthusiasm | Experience | Inclination | Little |
A willingness enemy s' attaches me to hold in a state of suspension and obstacles to me fooled by the things vague and the expectations evasive.
It's all right, I want to say to the students who write to me, for things to be what they appear to be, and for words to mean what they say. It's all right, too, for words and appearances to mean more than one thing — ambiguity is a fact of life.
Experience | Journey | Respect | Time | Respect |
Mrs. Watts and Mrs. Carson were both in the post office in Victory when the letter came from the Ellisville Institute for the Feeble-Minded of Mississippi. Aimee Slocum, with her hand still full of mail, ran out in front and handed it straight to Mrs. Watts, and they all three read it together. Mrs. Watts held it taut between her pink hands, and Mrs. Carson underscored each line slowly with her thimbled finger. Everyone else in the post office wondered what was up now.
If we define the nature of our lives by the mistake of the moment or the defeat of the hour or the boredom of the day, we will define it wrongly. We need roots in the past to give obedience ballast and breadth; we need a vision of the future to give obedience direction and goal. There must be an organic unity between past and future lived in the present.
Experience | Feelings | Heart | Little | Need | Past | People | Will | Work | Value |
Étienne Gilson, fully Étienne Henry Gilson
Modern philosophy has been created by laymen, not by churchmen, and to the ends of the natural cities of men, not to the end of the supernatural city of God.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
If a person is to get the meaning of life he must learn to like the facts about himself -- ugly as they may seem to his sentimental vanity -- before he can learn the truth behind the facts. And the truth is never ugly.
Will |
Too often we think of religion as a far-off, mysteriously run bureaucracy to which we apply for assistance when we feel the need. We go to a local branch office and direct the clerk (sometimes called a pastor) to fill out our order for God. If we thought about it for two consecutive minutes, we would not want it that way. If God is God at all, he must know more about our needs than we do.
You can see now from my comments that my gut feeling is that the most mature and reliable Christian guidance and understanding comes out of the most immediate and local of settings. The ordinary way. We have to break this cultural habit of sending out for an expert every time we feel we need some assistance. Wisdom is not a matter of expertise.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
Curiosity killed the cat, and satisfaction brought it back.
Will |
A sense of hurry in pastoral work disqualifies one for the work of conversation and prayer that develops relationships that meet personal needs. There are heavy demands put upon pastoral work, true; there is difficult work to be engaged in, yes. But the pastor must not be ‘busy.’… there must be a wide margin of leisure.
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience, became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see, and seeing the secret, you are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand lets the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on towards nowhere for no good reason.
Henry James said there isn't any difference between the English novel and the American novel since there are only two kinds of novels at all, the good and the bad.
Will |
If by spiritual direction you mean entering into a friendship with another person in which an awareness and responsiveness to God's Spirit in the everydayness of your life is cultivated, fine. Then why call in an awkward term like spiritual direction? Why not just friend?
We survive in the way of faith not because we have extraordinary stamina but because God sticks with us.
Birth | Death | Understanding | Will |
Eugene O'Neill, fully Eugene Gladstone O'Neill
The past is the present, isn't it? It's the future too.
Children | Experience | Wisdom | Old |