HOPE IN SIN

The final tendency of the modern philosophies - hailed in their day as a relase from the burden of sinfulness - has been to bind man hard and fast in the chains of an iron determinism. The influences of heredity and environment, of glandular makeup and the control exercised by the unconscious, of economic necessity and the mechanics of biological development, have all been invoked to assure man that he is not responsible for his misfortunes and therefore not to be held guilty. Evil has been represented as something imposed upon him from without, not made by him from within. The dreadful conclusion follows inevitably, that as he is not responsible for evil, he cannot alter it ... Today, if we could really be persuaded that we are miserable sinners - that the trouble is not outside us but inside us, and that therefore, by the grace of God, we can do something to put it right - we should receive that message as the most hopeful and heartening thing that can be imagined.

DOROTHY SAYERS, "CREED OR CHAOS?"

A TRUE OPIUM OF THE PEOPLE

A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death - the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders we are not going to be judged.

CSEZLAW MILOSZ, THE DISCREET CHARM OF NIHILISM

FINDING APPROVAL

There is no such thing as an autocratic individual, totally independent of the surrounding world and its recognition … Striving to find approval in the eyes of others, being noticed and not being dismissed as nothing by others demonstrates that I cannot relate to myself without relating to the world … I constantly vacillate, even to the very end of life, between the judgment others make about me and my own judgment of myself [and so] I am constantly trying to ascertain others’ judgment about me [so that I can make] my own judgment of myself …

OSWALD BAYER, LIVING BY FAITH

THE LEAST NATURAL OF LOVES

Friendship is -- in a sense not at all derogatory to it -- the least natural of loves; the least instinctive, organic, biological, gregarious and necessary. It his least commerce with our nerves; there is nothing throaty about it; nothing that quickens the pulse or turns you red and pale ... The species, biologically considered, has no need of it. The pack or her -- the community -- may even dislike and distrust it ... Affection and Eros were too obviously connected with our nerves, too obviously shared with the bruites. You could feel these tugging at your guts and fluttering in your diaphragm. But in Friendship -- in that luminous, tranquil, rational world of relationships freely chosen -- you got away from all that. This alone, of all the loves, seemed to raise you to the level of gods or angels.

C.S. LEWIS, THE FOUR LOVES

FRIENDSHIP

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

C.S. LEWIS, THE FOUR LOVES

LOVING HUMANITY

"I love humanity," he said, "but I wonder at myself. The more I love humanity in general, the less I love man in particular. In my dreams," he said, "I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he's too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity."

FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY, THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

THE PARADOX OF THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

"There are immense difficulties with this modern regime of self-generated happiness. It’s a regime filled with paradox. The self-conscious pursuit of happiness often leads to un-happiness, an unhappiness that is only intensified by the perception that one’s unhappiness is entirely one’s own responsibility—precisely because we assume that happiness is, or should be, something within our power to achieve for ourselves. So the experience of being unhappy, which is bad enough in itself, is rendered even worse by the sense of failure that attends it. Not only are you unhappy, but it’s your fault that you are."

WILFRED M. MCLAY, "THE PARADOX OF THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS"

LOST IN A HAUNTED WOOD

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day;
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play;
Lest we know where we are:
Lost in a haunted wood -
Children afraid of the dark
Who have never been happy or good.

W.H. Auden, "September 1939"