Previous William Thomas Sherman Info Page postings, quotes, observations, etc.
www.gunjones.com
B: What are you to do? Cyrano de Bergerac writes you...
A: Cyrano de Bergerac?
B: Yes, I got the idea from E. Michael Jones. Well anyway, you are to play the part of a most beautiful woman, and I want you to use all your very best acting ability for it. For you see Cyrano has fallen madly in love with you.
A: I'm not altogether sure...
B: What! Would you rather play Eurydice, get bit by a snake, and have our hero have to go to Hell to come after you?
A: I see what you mean.
[posted earlier on Face Book]
["Syd Barrett /Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne" - 1967]
"...Though sweet the numbers, though a fire divine
Dart through the whole, and burn in every line,
Who strives not for that excellence he draws,
Is stain'd by fame, and suffers from applause."
~ Edward Young (1683-1765), "A Letter to Mr. Tickell, Occasioned by the Death of the Right Hon. Joseph Addison, Esq., 1719."
[ch. 68]
After all that we have already said concerning Jesus, it would be a useless repetition for us to answer these words of Celsus: “It is easy to convict them of worshipping not a god, not even demons, but a dead person.” Leaving, then, this objection for the reason assigned, let us pass on to what follows: “In the first place, I would ask why we are not to serve demons? Is it not true that all things are ordered according to God's will, and that His providence governs all things? Is not everything which happens in the universe, whether it be the work of God, of angels, of other demons, or of heroes, regulated by the law of the Most High God? Have these not had assigned them various departments of which they were severally deemed worthy? Is it not just, therefore, that he who worships God should serve those also to whom God has assigned such power? Yet it is impossible, he says, for a man to serve many masters.” Observe here again how he settles at once a number of questions which require considerable research, and a profound acquaintance with what is most mysterious in the government of the universe. For we must inquire into the meaning of the statement, that “all things are ordered according to God's will,” and ascertain whether sins are or are not included among the things which God orders. For if God's government extends to sins not only in men, but also in demons and in any other spiritual beings who are capable of sin, it is for those who speak in this manner to see how inconvenient is the expression that “all things are ordered by the will of God.” For it follows from it that all sins and all their consequences are ordered by the will of God, which is a different thing from saying that they come to pass with God's permission. For if we take the word “ordered” in its proper signification, and say that “all the results of sin were ordered,” then it is evident that all things are ordered according to God's will, and that all, therefore, who do evil do not offend against His government. And the same distinction holds in regard to “providence.” When we say that “the providence of God regulates all things,” we utter a great truth if we attribute to that providence nothing but what is just and right. But if we ascribe to the providence of God all things whatsoever, however unjust they may be, then it is no longer true that the providence of God regulates all things, unless we refer directly to God's providence things which flow as results from His arrangements. Celsus maintains also, that “whatever happens in the universe, whether it be the work of God, of angels, of other demons, or of heroes, is regulated by the law of the Most High God.” But this also is incorrect; for we cannot say that transgressors follow the law of God when they transgress; and Scripture declares that it is not only wicked men who are transgressors, but also wicked demons and wicked angels.
~ Origen (c. 184-c. 253), Contra Celsus, Book VII
TO K. D.
There is a door hidden
in the soul
that to heaven leads,
and ecstasies and peace
that simply cannot be expressed.
The way there is the heart;
the key to it is faith
on the threshold truth,
awaiting inside.
A church in ruins lies;
the graves it blest
left behind at rest,
blasted by time,
awaiting a future age.
The pensive eremite
ruminates on thwarted hope
as the sun descends,
in the still twilight
of year's end.
Though the stars are fixed
in chambered abodes,
at the approach of night
a gloom pervades all;
breezes wail at the sight.
Why does the icy breeze
gently moan in hurried flight,
ruffling wildly the trees;
blow through my window
to caress those in sorrow?
It is as if
shredded and forlorn;
Nature mourned
its exile and separation
from the security of Heaven.
Would that winter waters
would already flow
and wash our troubles away.
Rolling fluid go
cleanse my cares of days,
over aches and groans
like a river rushing through stones.
Death and change let nothing
hold still, bad or good,
and all disappears down the river of ages;
till the fruit of faith in the end
harvests all that's good
of what's forgot.
So many things disappeared
and which in the eyes of the many
came to be as nothing,
yet in their day were the very thing.
The leaves are dying with the year;
orange, gold and red
are o'er the lawns over spread;
in a carpet they cover
returning to earth their mother
that in spring a new generation may appear.
The mundane, the physical
is chained to time,
but in the heart with faith
the spirit survives the flood of years;
where music lives ever
that takes the soul to empyrean;
as an eagle soars to dizzying height
till it reaches a point beyond our sight.
How like a paradise
the earth must have seemed
when roses grew wild;
birds first appeared
in all their colors singing,
majestic beasts wandering,
animals frolicking,
to wondering primitive man
with lessons of true life.
Where did all the voices of life come from?
What brings even the crows in droves
to caw together on a fine day,
or joins the sparrows in a throng to sing,
upon the departure of storm,
at the opening of Spring's dawn,
that chirping, that golden warbling
where music ever lives?
That scorned rosy-eyed view of things
is still there;
it is not gone;
only it is in closed keeping
till the world be purged of evil first
before being freed again.
And I thought
if life is beautiful,
it is because you,
(and such like you)
are so.
And you are so
because somehow, some way
Nature in you sighs;
that it lifts my heart
up to the skies.
[ch. 56]
...Moreover, he again speaks of the life of Jesus as “a most infamous life,” as he has done before, not once or twice, but many times, although he does not stay to specify any of the actions of His life which he thinks most infamous. He seems to think that he may in this way make assertions without proving them, and rail against one of whom he knows nothing. Had he set himself to show what sort of infamy he found in the actions of Jesus, we should have repelled the several charges brought against Him. Jesus did indeed meet with a most sad death; but the same might be said of Socrates, and of Anaxarchus, whom he had just mentioned, and a multitude of others. If the death of Jesus was a miserable one, was not that of the others so too? And if their death was not miserable, can it be said that the death of Jesus was? You see from this, then, that the object of Celsus is to vilify the character of Jesus; and I can only suppose that he is driven to it by some spirit akin to those whose power has been broken and vanquished by Jesus, and which now finds itself deprived of the smoke and blood on which it lived, while deceiving those who sought for God here upon earth in images, instead of looking up to the true God, the Governor of all things.
~ Origen (c. 184-c. 253), Contra Celsus, Book VII
