from Lilies Without by Laura Kasischke
Tag: god
Fanny Howe
God gave me being in order that I should give it back to him. It is like one of those traps whereby the characters are tested in fairy stories and tales on initiation. If I accept this gift it is bad and fatal; its virtue becomes apparent through my refusal of it. God allows me to exist outside himself. It is for me to refuse this authorization
Simone Weil
Our existence is made up only of his (God) waiting for our acceptance not to exist. He is perpetually begging from us that existence which he gives. He gives it to us in order to beg it from us.
Simone Weil
His love for us is love for himself through us. Thus, he who gives us our being loves in us the acceptance of not being.
Simone Weil
If my eyes are blindfolded and if my hands are chained to a stick, this stick separates me from things but I can explore them by means of it. It is only the stick which I feel, it is only the wall which I perceive. It is the same with creatures and the faculty of love. Supernatural love touches only creatures and goes only to God. It is only creatures which it loves (what else have we to love?), but it loves them as intermediaries.
Simone Weil
This world, in so far as it is completely empty of God, is God himself
Simone Weil, Gravity & Grace
The self is only the shadow which sin and error cast by stopping the light of God, and I take this shadow for a being.
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
Dust
Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor–
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes–
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.Dorianne Laux
The center is […] the threshold, mourning, the displacing of the question. The sign of a hole the book attempted to fill, the name of a hole, the name of man, like the name of God.
Edmond Jabes (via heteroglossia)
“Thirst,” a poem by Garth Greenwell appeared in Salmagundi 144-145 in 2004— 10+ years later and we’re we’re thrilled to see his new novel, What Belongs To You (FSG), celebrated so lavishly and widely (here’s Aaron Hamburger’s Times review)— but we can’t say we’re surprised. Garth’s brilliance as a writer and goodness as a human being has been known to us for a long time. We’re glad the wide world is catching on.
Little Bristling Soul 