Good morning, digital neighbors! Happy Monday and the twelfth week of autumn. Autumn now feels like an afterthought: the trees are bare, the wind is biting, and it seems winter has already moved in for good. Autumn has run through all its changes, and winter has settled in ahead of its astrological start date. Last week we reflected on wisdom; this week I thought we could look at some quotes and thoughts about change.
As modern people, we’re predisposed to see change as inherently good or positive. I think that bias comes from our fascination with technology and its relentless advances. I’m not knocking technology at all—it has undeniably made our world larger and our opportunities more abundant in countless ways. Yet every gain in life comes with some loss. If you doubt that, just think of the things we lament having lost in this current chapter of life, or the nostalgia (or at least wistful longing) many of us feel when we look back.
Change itself is constant, but directed, thoughtful change is not guaranteed. There is just as much chance that change will be haphazard or reckless as there is that it will be deliberate and wise. I’d argue humanity’s historical track record leans far more toward the haphazard side. So many of our biggest shifts have come as unintended consequences of decisions that gave little or no thought to what would be sacrificed for the sake of a particular gain. We march forward assuming that whatever comes next will somehow, inevitably, will be for the best.
I often think of the old cartoon character Mr. Magoo, who blundered through life leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, completely oblivious to the chaos he caused. I’m not suggesting we become Luddites, but we ought to question changes more rigorously—trying to envision both the best- and worst-case outcomes—as part of any serious discernment process. Enough Monday-morning babble from me. More on change tomorrow. Off to some quotes and a morning photo. Blessed Monday friends, roll with the changes!
Change is no modern invention. It is as old as time and as unlikely to disappear. It has always to be counted on as of the essence of human experience. - James Rowland Angell
Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good. – Thomas Sowell - From various essays and Controversial Essays (2002).
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter into another! - Anatole France
Winter sun in Switzerland - Oleg Demakov - Unsplash
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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Good morning, digital neighbors! Blessed Sabbath to all my neighbors in Judaism and happy Saturday to all the rest of us! How about a few quotes on autumn for this fine autumn morning and a trip down memory lane for some of us? Have a great day, my friends!
"Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, / We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!" – Humbert Wolfe, "Autumn (Resignation)" (1926)
"Again the wind / flakes gold-leaf from the trees and the painting darkens— / as if a thousand penitents kissed an icon / till it thinned back to bare wood, / without diminishment." – Jane Hirshfield, "Autumn" (The Paris Review, 1988)
"Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits." – Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh (1903)
When I think of autumn and childhood, I always think of this old Disney cartoon. I probably watch it every autumn in the days leading up to Halloween. Enjoy!
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
