Wednesday, August 22, 2007

C.S. Lewis quote

Found this insightful quote in C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity:


"That is why the Christian is in a different position from other people
who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if
there is one; or - if they think there is not - at least they hope to
deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he
does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will
love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He
loves us..."

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Scattered

Scattered thoughts, and a cool breeze to cool the perspiring neck. Cacophony of branches and roots; tangle of stalks and grasses. Leaning backwards, leaning in, seeking the cool shade. The bee flits from dry leaf to dry leaf, finding no relief.


Weary mind, weary soul, smell of burning wood. And little popping sounds about, and slow-walking people, and resonant bass notes from a faraway drum. Strong, pungent air, smell of stiff stalks, scent of wheat. Smell of sky and leaf, of cloud and twig, birdsong and thunder.


Wild song of a dying bird, ecstatic in its dying. Wild gaze of a hunter sighting his prey, heart arrhythmically pounding, the gaze that sees not, the mind from which reason is absent, the animal impulse that will not be sated. Against the sun, the skin of the neck


Burns.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Traveller

For the weary traveller, there are few things better than sitting in a massive, airy room with a view of the open sky. The crowd tries to make a din, but the noise is subsumed by the empty space, resulting in a quiet peace. Here you observe spent mothers, arms draped over the backs of their chairs, watching over their children. And men wearing hats, talking into their hands, talking of synchronicity.


Time. We're running out of time! Peer up, into the sky, through the water and into the sunlight. Weary limbs fall. Weary couples struggle to sit down, tripping on their luggage, dipping fish into mayonnaise while reading books. Strangers sit down together, make an uncomfortable silence, push a cup of coffee on a table of granite and wood.


The joyful businesswoman is frozen in a state of running, and the dreamer looks up at the clouds, aware of the silence, aware of the buzzing, and seeing conversations flowing soundlessly: words, words, transient words, floating into nothingness. Talk, talk, constant chatter, noise disappearing into the vacuous ephemeral, information quantized into bits, a beautiful woman in a rush to wait, stares, gestures, glances,

Waits.