“The patient endurance of the saints exhausts the evil power that attacks them, since it makes them glory in sufferings undergone for the sake of the truth. It teaches those too much concerned with a life in the flesh to deepen themselves through such sufferings instead of pursuing ease and comfort; and it makes the flesh's natural weakness in the endurance of suffering a foundation for overwhelming spiritual power. For the natural weakness of the saints is precisely such a foundation, since the Lord has made their weakness stronger than the proud devil.” MadeChristianSpiritualSufferingEvilNaturalLordTeachToo MuchProudComfortGloryWeaknessDevilConcernedStrongerFoundationPatientSakeSaintFleshEaseEnduranceOrthodoxOverwhelmingOrthodox ChristianSpiritual Power Author:Maximus the Confessor
“I think poetry can be a kind of secular way in which people can be led to approach the difficult parts of their life, where there's been loss, where there's sadness of a deep kind. If poetry can help people to be more at ease in expressing even to themselves a lot of the darkness and pain of ordinary human existence, then it's serving some kind of cultural role, perhaps more than a cultural role, perhaps it is serving something of a spiritual role.” PeopleIfsThinkingWayHumansKindHelpingPainSpiritualDifficultLossExistenceRolesDarknessSadnessApproachOrdinaryEaseServingSecularHuman Existence Author:Kevin Hart
“A true spiritual practitioner is someone who has discovered that it is possible to be at ease in the world for no reason, if only for a few moments at a time, and that such ease is synonymous with transcending the apparent boundaries of the self.” IfsWorldSelfReasonMomentsSpiritualBoundariesEaseNo ReasonTranscending Book:Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion Source: Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
“I had grown up among engineers, and I could remember the engineers of the twenties very well indeed: their open, shining intellects, their free and gentle humor, their agility and breadth of thought, the ease with which they shifted from one engineering field to another, and, for that matter, from technology to social concerns and art. Then, too, they personified good manners and delicacy of taste; well-bred speech that flowed evenly and was free of uncultured words; one of them might play a musical instrument, another dabble in painting; and their faces always bore a spiritual imprint.” WellsArtMatterPlayMightRememberFacesSpiritualSocialTechnologyFieldsPaintingTasteSpeechConcernTwentiesInstrumentsShiningMusicalIntellectMannersEaseGentleGood ManEngineeringEngineersBoresDelicacyGood MannersBreadthAgilityMusical Instruments Author:Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn