“To know and to serve God, of course, is why we’re here, a clear truth, that, like the nose on your face, is near at hand and easily discernible but can make you dizzy if you try to focus on it hard. But a little faith will see you through. What else will do except faith in such a cynical, corrupt time? When the country goes temporarily to the dogs, cats must learn to be circumspect, walk on fences, sleep in trees, and have faith that all this woofing is not the last word.
What is the last word, then? Gentleness is everywhere in daily life, a sign that faith rules through ordinary things: through cooking and small talk, through storytelling, making love, fishing, tending animals and sweet corn and flowers, through sports, music and books, raising kids — all the places where the gravy soaks in, and grace shines through. Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people. What keeps my faith cheerful is the extreme persistence of gentleness and humour. Lacking any other purpose in life, it would be good enough to live for their sake."
Garrison Keillor
"True freedom is to know what is good, what is the right thing to do, and to have the will to do it, even when it goes against our selfish inclinations. It is to free ourselves from fear and all those things that hold us down, which prevent us from finding and fulfilling our part in the great renewal of creation and the triumph of life over death, of being over nothingness.
The most powerful in the eyes are the world are often the most enslaved, victims of basest passions, servants to the most undeserving and meanest of ambitions, lashing out in their insatiable misery. With obeisance they serve and nurture the willfulness that delivers them first up to slavery to themselves, and then to darker powers, and finally into the jaws of self destruction.
The paradox of life is that we hate what we fear, but we eventually become what we hate, because it occupies so much of our energy and mind. It makes a place for itself in our hearts. When the adversary of all goodness intertwines his fingers with ours, whispering sweet words of power and fame, of hatreds and passions, he slowly tightens his grip and holds fast, and then we are his."
Jesse, A Light on the Road to Damascus, 26 December 2010
Stocks wobbled back and forth again today.
Gold and silver were under a bit of pressure and slipped back some.
VIX declined slightly in a diffident gesture at risk taking.
Slowly we approach the stormy season of markets.
But for now, complacency reigns, as we approach the option expiration on Friday.
Have a pleasant evening.
