Sublime

GOD’S UNAVOIDABLE PRESENCE What can you ever really know of other people’s souls—of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense alone with Him. You cannot put Him off with speculations about your

the word “love,” and was deeply relieved when I found one in psychiatrist M. Scott Peck’s classic self-help book The Road Less Traveled, first published in 1978. Echoing the work of Erich Fromm, he defines love

Moldados pela competição e pelo medo, pela oposição entre impotência e onipotência, crescemos vendo no outro um predador sempre à nossa espreita, pronto para abocanhar algo nosso muito precioso: o lugar na fila, a vaga no estacionamento, o posto no emprego. Diante desse terrível e ameaçador “oponente”, vou abrir meu coração para escutá-lo, buscando

“Maybe, Josef, living safely is dangerous. Dangerous and deadly.”

And then the mind attaches to that, and it creates a whole system to hold up the first lie. Let your feelings tell you when the first lie begins. Then inquire. Otherwise, you get lost in the feelings and in the stories that lead to them, and all you know is that you hurt and that your mind won’t stop racing. And if you inquire, you catch the first

Imagine what it would be like to see other people in this way too—as well-meaning at heart but sometimes misguided. We would understand that even our worst enemies are driven by parts of theirs that are just trying to protect them from shame, fear, and other difficult feelings.