sorrow

Sorrowful and great is the artist's destiny.

Earthly contemplation means to the Christian, we have said, this above all: that behind all that we directly encounter the Face of the incarnate Logos becomes visible... Contemplation does not ignore the "historical Gethsemane," does not ignore the mystery of evil, guilt and its bloody atonement. The happiness of contemplation is a true happiness, indeed the supreme happiness; but it is founded upon sorrow.

I no longer follow the voices of the sane. I follow the ill because they see farther, feel much more and change what the sane will not. This is the paradox of philosophers---trying to understand mass delusion among great people that have faith and knowledge, yet they can__ graduate from their institutions of religious theology to apply the knowledge they have gained for the shifting of Zion---- from words to action; from comfort to uncomfortable; from self serving to self giving; from competition to supporting; to tradition to unity; from bias to acceptance; from me to us.

Blessed are those with cracks in their broken heart because that is how the light gets in.

What is happiness? What is a good life? Is it a life without suffering? Something like that doesn't exist... Life is filled with suffering and sorrow. So it's no wonder that to those who fear suffering, the world seems like a living hell! And still...those who bravely keep going and try to push through this hell... They'll find that it's only a small stretch of the road to happiness. The truly great are those who never lose hope, even when thrown into hell... And as long as we have faith in ourselves, even hell itself can be a paradise!

Memory haunts me from age to age, and passion leads me by the hand--evil have I done, and with sorrow have I made acquaintance from age to age, and from age to age evil shall I do, and sorrow shall I know till my redemption comes.

You can__ selectively numb your anger, any more than you can turn off all lights in a room, and still expect to see the light.

No truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end andlearn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.

...[T]wo of you can be no match for the three giants, I will find you, if I can, a third brother, who will take on himself the third share of the fight, and the preparation...I will show him to you in a glass, and, when he comes, you will know him at once. If he will share your endeavors, you must teach him all you know, and he will repay you well, in present song, and in future deeds.'She opened the door of a curious old cabinet that stood in the room. On the inside of this door was an oval convex mirror...we at length saw reflected the place where we stood, and the old dame seated in her chair...at the feet of the dame lay a young man...weeping.'Surely this youth will not serve our ends,' said I, 'for he weeps.'The old woman smiled. 'Past tears are present strength,'said she.

Past tears are present strength.

Worry is a down payment on a problem you may never have. It doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, just empties today of its strength.

You pushed me down to the depths of my sorrow until I thought I wouldn__ see the light of day again. You expected me to drown, didn__ you? To be left there for an eternity, waiting for your hand to pull me out? What you didn__ stop to realize is that I live in the shadows, thrive even. When I pull myself from the darkness, I__l be stronger for it and you__l regret leaving me for dead.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength._ Corrie ten Boom

Century after century, the belief that an individual__ physical health was independent of his or her emotional health has so dominated medical thought that there has even been open contempt for anyone who would dare to claim that a person__ physical well-being is the sum of its internal and external influences.

Caring for others tends to be the first cut when we review our personal time budget. It does not necessarily fulfill the goals of my ambition; it will not pave the way for my success; it takes away from my own depleted emotional resources. It is an imposition in every way. To some of us, it is an inconvenience from which we unashamedly run. We have become experts in maintaining a grand scope of friendships and amateurs in genuine intimacy and care. Unwittingly, we have sacrificed everything on the altar of self-sufficiency__nly to discover that we have sold our souls to isolation.

I__ helped by a gentle notion from Buddhist psychology, that there are __ear enemies_ to every great virtue__eactions that come from a place of care in us, and which feel right and good, but which subtly take us down an ineffectual path. Sorrow is a near enemy to compassion and to love. It is borne of sensitivity and feels like empathy. But it can paralyze and turn us back inside with a sense that we can__ possibly make a difference. The wise Buddhist anthropologist and teacher Roshi Joan Halifax calls this a __athological empathy_ of our age. In the face of magnitudes of pain in the world that come to us in pictures immediate and raw, many of us care too much and see no evident place for our care to go. But compassion goes about finding the work that can be done. Love can__ help but stay present

I mean talk. Never forget that God is your friend. And like all friends, He longs to hear what's been happening in your life. Good or bad, whether it's been full of sorrow or anger, and even when you're questioning why terrible things have to happen. So I talk withhim.

So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it.