Western Christian Meditation

Famous quotes containing the words western christian, western, christian and/or meditation:

    “One of the oddest features of western Christianized culture is its ready acceptance of the myth of the stable family and the happy marriage. We have been taught to accept the myth not as an heroic ideal, something good, brave, and nearly impossible to fulfil, but as the very fibre of normal life. Given most families and most marriages, the belief seems admirable but foolhardy.”
    —Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)

    “In Western Europe people perish from the congestion and stifling closeness, but with us it is from the spaciousness.... The expanses are so great that the little man hasn’t the resources to orient himself.... This is what I think about Russian suicides.”
    —Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)

    “My Christian friends, in bonds of love, whose hearts in sweetest union join,
    Your friendship’s like a drawing band, yet we must take the parting hand.
    Your company’s sweet, your union dear; Your words delightful to my ear,
    Yet when I see that we must part, You draw like cords around my heart.”
    —John Blain (18th century)

    “The real meditation is ... the meditation on one’s identity. Ah, voilĂ  une chose!! You try it. You try finding out why you’re you and not somebody else. And who in the blazes are you anyhow? Ah, voilĂ  une chose!”
    —Ezra Pound (1885–1972)