Robert Burns: Remorse (A Fragment)
Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,
That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish,
Beyond comparison the worst are those
That to our folly or our guilt we owe.
In every other circumstance, the mind
Has this to say, 'It was no deed of mine;'
But when to all the evil of misfortune
This sting is added - 'Blame thy foolish self!'
Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse;
The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt,--
Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others;
The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us,
Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin!
O burning hell! in all thy store of torments,
There's not a keener lash!
Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart
Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime,
Can reason down its agonizing throbs;
And, after proper purpose of amendment,
Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace?
O, happy! happy! enviable man!
O glorious magnanimity of soul!
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
the practical need of ecclesiastical life
The Church is one and has never
been divided, but heretics and schismatics fell away from her in the
first age, have fallen away since, and will fall away again until the
Lord’s Second Coming. Therefore, there can be no question of Union with
heretics and schismatics, but only of their restoration to union with
the Church from which they fell away.
If Roman Catholics should renounce their imaginations, then their restoration to union with the Church would be a matter for the greatest joy to the faithful and to the Holy Angels, not only for the sake of their soul’s salvation but for the realization of the restored fullness of the Church’s life to which our brethren of the West would bring that corporate ecclesiastical activity which is characteristic to them. In the circumstance of the renunciation by the Roman Catholics of their pseudo-dogmas, and in particular of that absurd one of them which ascribes Infallibility to the Pope in matters of Faith, the Holy Church in restoring them to union with herself, would not only certainly restore to the Roman Primate that primacy which was assigned to him before his falling away into schism, but would probably invest him with such an authority in the Oecumenical Church as had never hitherto been assigned to him – inasmuch as that which he formerly possessed was confined to Western Europe and North-West Africa.
But such authority, assumed as being given to the Pope after his return to Orthodoxy, would be based not on Roman fables about the Apostle Peter as chief over all the Apostles, about the succession of the Popes to the fullness of his imaginary authority, about indulgences, purgatory, etc., but in the practical need of ecclesiastical life by the force of which that life was gradually centralized: first, in the metropolitanates (from the third century) and then in the patriarchates (from the fourth and fifth centuries) with the result that the authority of the metropolitans and patriarchs in their areas was continually and gradually strengthened in proportion to the assimilation of the people to Christian culture. We admit for the future the conception of a single personal supremacy of the Church in consonance with the broadest preservation of the conciliar principle and on that condition that the supremacy does not pretend to be based on such invented traditions as the above, but only on the practical need of ecclesiastical life.
Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)
Lecture in Belgrade, August 5 / 28 1923
Translated from the Metropolitan’s summary in Tserkovniya Vedemoste, 15/ 28 October (1923)
Source: The Christian East, February 1924, vol V no 1
If Roman Catholics should renounce their imaginations, then their restoration to union with the Church would be a matter for the greatest joy to the faithful and to the Holy Angels, not only for the sake of their soul’s salvation but for the realization of the restored fullness of the Church’s life to which our brethren of the West would bring that corporate ecclesiastical activity which is characteristic to them. In the circumstance of the renunciation by the Roman Catholics of their pseudo-dogmas, and in particular of that absurd one of them which ascribes Infallibility to the Pope in matters of Faith, the Holy Church in restoring them to union with herself, would not only certainly restore to the Roman Primate that primacy which was assigned to him before his falling away into schism, but would probably invest him with such an authority in the Oecumenical Church as had never hitherto been assigned to him – inasmuch as that which he formerly possessed was confined to Western Europe and North-West Africa.
But such authority, assumed as being given to the Pope after his return to Orthodoxy, would be based not on Roman fables about the Apostle Peter as chief over all the Apostles, about the succession of the Popes to the fullness of his imaginary authority, about indulgences, purgatory, etc., but in the practical need of ecclesiastical life by the force of which that life was gradually centralized: first, in the metropolitanates (from the third century) and then in the patriarchates (from the fourth and fifth centuries) with the result that the authority of the metropolitans and patriarchs in their areas was continually and gradually strengthened in proportion to the assimilation of the people to Christian culture. We admit for the future the conception of a single personal supremacy of the Church in consonance with the broadest preservation of the conciliar principle and on that condition that the supremacy does not pretend to be based on such invented traditions as the above, but only on the practical need of ecclesiastical life.
Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky)
Lecture in Belgrade, August 5 / 28 1923
Translated from the Metropolitan’s summary in Tserkovniya Vedemoste, 15/ 28 October (1923)
Source: The Christian East, February 1924, vol V no 1
Friday, January 10, 2014
The Principle of Maximum Diversity
And then life will
diversify to fill the infinite variety of ecological niches in the
universe, as it has done already on this planet. If you want an
intellectual principle to give this picture a philosophical name, you
can call it “The Principle of Maximum Diversity”. The principle of
maximum diversity says that life evolves to make the universe as
interesting as possible. A rain-forest contains a huge number of
diverse species because specialization is cost-effective
- Freeman Dyson
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
"I feel like hollerin'"
Leon Wieseltier, who has published some of Morozov’s most acid criticism at The New Republic, compares him to the ferocious jazz musician Charles Mingus, who once responded to an interviewer who accused him of “hollerin’ ” by saying, “I feel like hollerin’.”
- Michael Myer in 'Evgeny vs. the internet'(Columbia Journalism Review)
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