User Profile

We must turn now to the second dimension of the Christian experience of time—to the so-called "Christian year." To speak of it, however, is even more difficult than to speak of Sunday, because for the modern Christian the relation between this "Christian year" and time has become incomprehensible and, therefore, irrelevant. On certain dates the church commemorates certain events of the past—nativity, resurrection, the descent of the Holy Spirit. These dates are an occasion for a liturgical "illustration" of certain theological affirmations, but as such they are in no way related to the real time or of consequence to it. Even within the Church itself they are mere "breaks" in the normal routine of its activities, and many business minded and action-oriented Christians secretly consider these festivals and celebrations a waste of time. And if other Christians welcome them as additional days of rest and "vacation," no one seriously thinks of them as the very heart of the Church's life and mission. There exists, in other words, a serious crisis in the very idea of a feast....

— For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann (Page 52 - 53)

Time is the only reality of life, yet it is a strangely nonexistent reality: it constantly dissolves life in a past which no longer is, and in a future which always leads to death. By itself time is nothing but a line of telegraph poles strung out into the distance and at some point along the way is death.

All generations, all philosophers have always been aware of this anxiety of time, of its paradox. All philosophy, all religion is ultimately an attempt to solve the "problem of time."

— For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann (Page 47)

One element of the art of conversation is to ask the other about himself. Since this is often their favorite topic, or at least a topic on which they are reasonably well informed, it seldom fails to draw them out and put them at ease.

— The January Dancer by Michael Flynn (Spiral Arm, #1)

War is always ugly. It is guts streaming from opened abdomens. It is a head trying to speak its last few words as it stares in astonishment at the body it once topped. It is learning the ghastly meaning of the term “human remains” in the ruins of Da Derga’s Hostel, after some boyo has used up the last of a dwindling supply of jolly good-night. So there had better be a damned good reason for it, because even if it is good, it is still damned. Yet, better to fight over liberty and loyalty than over tuppence difference in the tariff on lace. Bigger wars have been fought for a great deal less. And if a man will not fight to keep his liberties, he is a slave to the first tyrant who would kill to take them. That doesn’t make things less ugly, but it might mean that in later years, when a man wakes in the dead of night in a cold, shivering sweat, he can, at length, go back to sleep.

— The January Dancer by Michael Flynn (Spiral Arm, #1)

A war is always ugly, and a civil war the ugliest of all. An invader may be expelled and sent back to where he came from, but a neighbor remains a neighbor after the fighting is over.

— The January Dancer by Michael Flynn (Spiral Arm, #1)

There are appetites that ought not be fed, for they grow on their feeding.

— The January Dancer by Michael Flynn (Spiral Arm, #1)