The Cloister Walk

the tendency in America to insist that everything be self-discovery.

One difficulty that people seeking to modernize hymnals and the language of worship inevitably run into is that contemporaries are never the best judges of what works and what doesn’t.

There is but one creator, and “creating” is the very thing that artists cannot do.

The young monk read from the Bible: “The Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ ” I have always found that to be a poignant summary of the human response to evil: I was afraid, I tried to hide.

“he recognized that the purpose of individual growth is to share with others.”

Walter Brueggeman, in a book on the prophets entitled Hopeful Imagination, suggests that “a sense of call in our time is profoundly countercultural,” and notes that “the ideology of our time is that we can live ‘an uncalled life,’ one not referred to any purpose beyond one’s self.”

Maybe Mary’s story, and this feast, tell us that if the scriptures don’t sometimes pierce us like a sword, we’re not paying close enough attention.

The human experience is of violence, and the psalms reflect our experience of the world.”

“perfection consists in being what God wants us to be.”