written by Foilliott S. Pierpont.
For the beauty of the earth
For the Glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies:
'Lord of all, to Thee we raise
this our grateful hymn of praise.
For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale and tree and flow'r
Sun and Moon and stars of light
For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child.
Friends on earth and friends above
For all gentle thoughts and mild.
For each perfect gift of Thine
To our race so freely given.
Graces human and divine
Flow'rs of earth and buds of heav'n.
For thy church that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore
Her pure sacrifice of love.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
my favorite of the Screwtape Letters
so amazing I just had to sit here and type the entire thing out - written by C.S. Lewis of course.
don't read this if you don't know the premise of the book, because it won't make any sense.
My dear, my very dear, Wormwood, my Poppet, my Pigsnie,
How mistakenly, now that all is lost, you come whimpering to ask me whether the terms of affection in which I address you meant nothing from the beginning. Far from it! Rest assured, my love for you and your love for me are as like two peas. I have always desired you, as you (pitiful fool) desired me. The difference is that I am the stronger. I think they will give you to me now; or a bit of you. Love you? Why, yes. As dainty a morsel as I ever grew fat on.
You have let a soul slip through your fingers. The howl of sharpened famine for that loss reechoes at this moment through all the levels of the Kingdom of Noise down to the very Throne itself. It makes me mad to think of it. How well I know what happened at the instant when they snatched him from you! There was a sudden clearing of his eyes (was there not?) as he saw you for the first time, and recognized the part you had had in him and knew that you had it no longer. Just think (and let it be the beginning of your agony) what he felt at that moment; as if a scab had fallen from an old sore, as if he were emerging from a hideous, shell-like tetter; as if he shuffled off for good and all a defiled, wet, clinging garment. By Hell, it is misery enough to see them in their mortal days taking off dirtied and uncomfortable clothes and splashing in hot water and giving little grunts of pleasure - stretching their eased limbs! What then, of this final stripping, this complete cleansing?
The more one thinks about it, the worse it becomes. He got through so easily! No gradual misgivings, no doctor's sentence, no nursing home, no operating theatre, no false hopes of life: sheer, instantaneous liberation. One moment it seemed to be all our world; the scream of bombs, the fall of houses, the stink and taste of high explosive on the lips and in the lungs, the feet burning with weariness, the heart cold with horrors, the brain reeling, the legs aching; next moment all this was gone, gone like a bad dream, never again to be of any account. Defeated, out-maneuvered fool! Did you mark how naturally -- as if he'd been born for it -- the Earth-born vermin entered the new life? How all his doubts became, in the twinkling of an eye, ridiculous? I know what the creature was saying to itself! "Yes. Of course. It always was like this. All horrors have followed the same course, getting worse and worse and forcing you into a kind of bottleneck till, at the very moment when you thought you must be crushed, behold! you were out of the narrows and all was suddenly well. The extraction hurt more and more and then the tooth was out. The dream became a nightmare and then you woke. You die and die and then you are beyond death. How could I ever have doubted it?"
As he saw you, he also saw Them. I know how it was. You reeled back dizzy and blinded, more hurt by them than he had ever been by bombs. The degradation of it! -- that this thing of earth and slime could stand upright and converse with spirits before whom you, a spirit, could only cower. Perhaps you had hoped that the awe and strangeness of it would dash his joy. But that is the cursed thing; the gods are so strange to mortal eyes, and yet they are not strange. He had no faintest conception till that very hour of how they would look, and even doubted their existence. But when he saw them he knew that he had always known them and realized what part each one of them had played at many an hour in his life when he ha supposed himself alone, so that now he could say to them, one by one, not "Who are you?" but "So it was you all the time." All that they were and said at this meeting woke memories. The dim consciousness of friends about him which had haunted his solitudes from infancy was now at last explained; that central music in every pure experience which had always just evaded memory was now at last recovered. Recognition made him free of their company almost before the limbs of his corpse became quiet. Only you were left outside.
He saw not only Them; he saw Him. This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him. What is blinding, suffocating fire to you is now cool light to him, is clarity itself, and wears the form of a Man. You would like, if you could, to interpret the patient's prostration in the Presence, his self-abhorrence and utter knowledge of his sins (yes, Wormwood, a clearer knowledge even than yours) on the analogy of your own chocking and paralyzing sensations when you encounter the deadly air that breathes from the heart of Heaven. But it's all nonsense. Pains he may still have to encounter, but they embrace those pains. They would not barter them for any earthly pleasure. All the delights of sense or heart or intellect with which you could once have tempted him, even the delights of virtue itself, now seem to him in comparison but as the half-nauseous attractions of a raddled harlot would seem to a man who hears that his true beloved whom he has loved all his life and whom he had believed to be dead is alive and even now at his door. He is caught up in to that world where pain and pleasure take on transfinite values and where all our arithmetic is dismayed. Once more, the inexplicable meets us. Next to the curse of useless tempters like yourself, the greatest curse upon is is the failure of our Intelligence Department. If we could only find out what He is really up to! Alas, alas, that knowledge, in itself so hateful and mawkish a thing, should yet be necessary for Power! Sometimes I am almost in despair. All that sustains me is the conviction that our Realism, our rejection (in the face of all temptations) of all silly nonsense and claptrap, must win in the end. Meanwhile, I have you to settle with. Most truly do I sign myself
Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
don't read this if you don't know the premise of the book, because it won't make any sense.
My dear, my very dear, Wormwood, my Poppet, my Pigsnie,
How mistakenly, now that all is lost, you come whimpering to ask me whether the terms of affection in which I address you meant nothing from the beginning. Far from it! Rest assured, my love for you and your love for me are as like two peas. I have always desired you, as you (pitiful fool) desired me. The difference is that I am the stronger. I think they will give you to me now; or a bit of you. Love you? Why, yes. As dainty a morsel as I ever grew fat on.
You have let a soul slip through your fingers. The howl of sharpened famine for that loss reechoes at this moment through all the levels of the Kingdom of Noise down to the very Throne itself. It makes me mad to think of it. How well I know what happened at the instant when they snatched him from you! There was a sudden clearing of his eyes (was there not?) as he saw you for the first time, and recognized the part you had had in him and knew that you had it no longer. Just think (and let it be the beginning of your agony) what he felt at that moment; as if a scab had fallen from an old sore, as if he were emerging from a hideous, shell-like tetter; as if he shuffled off for good and all a defiled, wet, clinging garment. By Hell, it is misery enough to see them in their mortal days taking off dirtied and uncomfortable clothes and splashing in hot water and giving little grunts of pleasure - stretching their eased limbs! What then, of this final stripping, this complete cleansing?
The more one thinks about it, the worse it becomes. He got through so easily! No gradual misgivings, no doctor's sentence, no nursing home, no operating theatre, no false hopes of life: sheer, instantaneous liberation. One moment it seemed to be all our world; the scream of bombs, the fall of houses, the stink and taste of high explosive on the lips and in the lungs, the feet burning with weariness, the heart cold with horrors, the brain reeling, the legs aching; next moment all this was gone, gone like a bad dream, never again to be of any account. Defeated, out-maneuvered fool! Did you mark how naturally -- as if he'd been born for it -- the Earth-born vermin entered the new life? How all his doubts became, in the twinkling of an eye, ridiculous? I know what the creature was saying to itself! "Yes. Of course. It always was like this. All horrors have followed the same course, getting worse and worse and forcing you into a kind of bottleneck till, at the very moment when you thought you must be crushed, behold! you were out of the narrows and all was suddenly well. The extraction hurt more and more and then the tooth was out. The dream became a nightmare and then you woke. You die and die and then you are beyond death. How could I ever have doubted it?"
As he saw you, he also saw Them. I know how it was. You reeled back dizzy and blinded, more hurt by them than he had ever been by bombs. The degradation of it! -- that this thing of earth and slime could stand upright and converse with spirits before whom you, a spirit, could only cower. Perhaps you had hoped that the awe and strangeness of it would dash his joy. But that is the cursed thing; the gods are so strange to mortal eyes, and yet they are not strange. He had no faintest conception till that very hour of how they would look, and even doubted their existence. But when he saw them he knew that he had always known them and realized what part each one of them had played at many an hour in his life when he ha supposed himself alone, so that now he could say to them, one by one, not "Who are you?" but "So it was you all the time." All that they were and said at this meeting woke memories. The dim consciousness of friends about him which had haunted his solitudes from infancy was now at last explained; that central music in every pure experience which had always just evaded memory was now at last recovered. Recognition made him free of their company almost before the limbs of his corpse became quiet. Only you were left outside.
He saw not only Them; he saw Him. This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him. What is blinding, suffocating fire to you is now cool light to him, is clarity itself, and wears the form of a Man. You would like, if you could, to interpret the patient's prostration in the Presence, his self-abhorrence and utter knowledge of his sins (yes, Wormwood, a clearer knowledge even than yours) on the analogy of your own chocking and paralyzing sensations when you encounter the deadly air that breathes from the heart of Heaven. But it's all nonsense. Pains he may still have to encounter, but they embrace those pains. They would not barter them for any earthly pleasure. All the delights of sense or heart or intellect with which you could once have tempted him, even the delights of virtue itself, now seem to him in comparison but as the half-nauseous attractions of a raddled harlot would seem to a man who hears that his true beloved whom he has loved all his life and whom he had believed to be dead is alive and even now at his door. He is caught up in to that world where pain and pleasure take on transfinite values and where all our arithmetic is dismayed. Once more, the inexplicable meets us. Next to the curse of useless tempters like yourself, the greatest curse upon is is the failure of our Intelligence Department. If we could only find out what He is really up to! Alas, alas, that knowledge, in itself so hateful and mawkish a thing, should yet be necessary for Power! Sometimes I am almost in despair. All that sustains me is the conviction that our Realism, our rejection (in the face of all temptations) of all silly nonsense and claptrap, must win in the end. Meanwhile, I have you to settle with. Most truly do I sign myself
Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
quirks
I'm a quirky person. !Que sorpresa! Unique things about me:
-I really really love going to the dentist - especially getting fillings!
-I also really enjoy clearing dishes from tables at work, as long as I don't have to wash those dishes.
-I dig hymns.
-I absolutely hate being solicited. I don't think that's unique about me, but I hate it nonetheless.
-I get overstimulated going to Walmart and amusement parks. but not Target.
-in order to pay attention in class, I have to be working on something else while simultaneously taking notes.
-in my novel-writing, when I get writer's block, I tend to do destructive things to my characters; it is usually during these times that my characters get smallpox, sprained ankles, or limbs amputated.
-I've worn my purity ring since I was 14, and I still think it's romantic and not weird. Well maybe a little weird.
-I love the Barbie movies. And I'm not ashamed.
-I wear one necklace all the time, and I rarely take it off.
-I hate sticky things and being sticky - this hatred is genetic. I'm also borderline OCD about the cleanliness of my hands.
-I also HATE checking my voicemail. even if it's from someone I know - even if I know exactly what the message will say - I still go days without checking it.
-I carry my purple nalgene with me everywhere I go, and I drink water constantly.
-I have no desire to ever visit or live in NYC.
-I have a list of "things to buy when I have money", including a box of tools, pantyhose, the TV series Liberty's Kids on DVD, and an ice cream maker
-I only write with black pen - anything else messes up the congruency of my notes.
-I'm a sucker for a man wearing flannel
-I'm inordinately proud of my SAT scores. Ask me, and I'll tell you.
-Despite my best efforts, I hate reggae and rap.
-I don't like alcohol and have no need to "learn to like it". But I do love a good Shirley Temple!
-I still have the burning desire to learn Latin.
-I was born with two teeth. Don't know what that says about me, but there it is.
-I listen to Christmas music all year round.
-I love step aerobics classes
-I kind of have a big crush on Abraham Lincoln.
-I look forward to going to see "A Christmas Carol" at the South Coast Repertoire every year, all year. And I always cry when Scrooge realizes that he can change.
-I have the first 4 seasons of Home Improvement on DVD.
-I desperately want to be able to draw, but lack the patience to practice.
-I'll eat almost anything for breakfast, and it often grosses my family out.
-I enjoy talking with a fake lisp.
-When I read a novel, any novel, I can't turn off the English major portion of my brain - so I analyze. And highlight. There might also be sticky notes involved.
-For me there's nothing more relaxing than a movie and a puzzle.
-I tend to read books over and over again instead of reading new ones.
-I'll answer a letter (complete with pretty stationary and a wax seal) before I'll answer an email.
-I have a weird obsession with birds.
there you go. that's me, in all my weirdness.
-I really really love going to the dentist - especially getting fillings!
-I also really enjoy clearing dishes from tables at work, as long as I don't have to wash those dishes.
-I dig hymns.
-I absolutely hate being solicited. I don't think that's unique about me, but I hate it nonetheless.
-I get overstimulated going to Walmart and amusement parks. but not Target.
-in order to pay attention in class, I have to be working on something else while simultaneously taking notes.
-in my novel-writing, when I get writer's block, I tend to do destructive things to my characters; it is usually during these times that my characters get smallpox, sprained ankles, or limbs amputated.
-I've worn my purity ring since I was 14, and I still think it's romantic and not weird. Well maybe a little weird.
-I love the Barbie movies. And I'm not ashamed.
-I wear one necklace all the time, and I rarely take it off.
-I hate sticky things and being sticky - this hatred is genetic. I'm also borderline OCD about the cleanliness of my hands.
-I also HATE checking my voicemail. even if it's from someone I know - even if I know exactly what the message will say - I still go days without checking it.
-I carry my purple nalgene with me everywhere I go, and I drink water constantly.
-I have no desire to ever visit or live in NYC.
-I have a list of "things to buy when I have money", including a box of tools, pantyhose, the TV series Liberty's Kids on DVD, and an ice cream maker
-I only write with black pen - anything else messes up the congruency of my notes.
-I'm a sucker for a man wearing flannel
-I'm inordinately proud of my SAT scores. Ask me, and I'll tell you.
-Despite my best efforts, I hate reggae and rap.
-I don't like alcohol and have no need to "learn to like it". But I do love a good Shirley Temple!
-I still have the burning desire to learn Latin.
-I was born with two teeth. Don't know what that says about me, but there it is.
-I listen to Christmas music all year round.
-I love step aerobics classes
-I kind of have a big crush on Abraham Lincoln.
-I look forward to going to see "A Christmas Carol" at the South Coast Repertoire every year, all year. And I always cry when Scrooge realizes that he can change.
-I have the first 4 seasons of Home Improvement on DVD.
-I desperately want to be able to draw, but lack the patience to practice.
-I'll eat almost anything for breakfast, and it often grosses my family out.
-I enjoy talking with a fake lisp.
-When I read a novel, any novel, I can't turn off the English major portion of my brain - so I analyze. And highlight. There might also be sticky notes involved.
-For me there's nothing more relaxing than a movie and a puzzle.
-I tend to read books over and over again instead of reading new ones.
-I'll answer a letter (complete with pretty stationary and a wax seal) before I'll answer an email.
-I have a weird obsession with birds.
there you go. that's me, in all my weirdness.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)