my commonplace book

"

There is no limit to his presence. There is no place we can go, no activity we can engage in, where he is not watching over us. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”

But fear tries to convince us it is not so. Fear has created more practicing heretics than bad theology ever has, for it makes us live as though we serve a limited, finite, partially present, semi-competent God.

"

"…Other lives run from the first another course. Other travellers encounter weather fitful and gusty, wild and variable – breast adverse winds, are belated and overtaken by the early closing winter night. Neither can this happen without the sanction of God; and I know that, amidst His boundless works, is somewhere stored the secret of this last fate’s justice: I know that His treasures contain the proof as the promise of its mercy."

"I ended my first book with the words no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words."

"We see everything in a glass, darkly. Sometimes we can peer through the glass and catch a glimpse of what is on the other side. If we were to polish the glass clean, we’d see much more. But then we would no longer see ourselves."

"Did you say that we become sad when something’s beautiful? Or beautiful when something’s sad?"

"

‘I still don’t know who you are.’

‘But we know nearly everything about you. It’s just like a looking-glass.’

‘Like a looking-glass?’

He leaned forward, looking as if at any moment he might tip over and fall on to the desk.

‘You see only yourselves. You can’t see what’s on the other side.’

"

"tasting the words"

"

‘Sometimes it happens that a human being lifts his eyes towards his heavenly origin. Then it’s as if God sees himself in the mirror.’

She let out her breath. ‘Sky and sea!’ she exclaimed.

‘Yes. Like the sky and the sea.’

‘What then?’

‘The sky mirrors itself in the sea. In that way God can mirror himself in a pair of human eyes. For the eye is the mirror of the soul, and God is able to mirror himself in a human soul.’

"

"Is it true that sometimes you’re so suspicious, you turn quite black inside?"

"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God."