A brief trip into the mind of..
De ethiek van elfenland.
Een opeenvolging van zeven fragmenten die de kern van mijn denken benadert. Voor de toekomstige psycho-analyse.
1.
What if you slept
And what if
In your sleep
You dreamed
And what if
In your dream
You went to heaven
And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower
And what if
When you awoke
You had that flower in you hand
Ah, what then?
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
2. [from: Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton]
First, I found the whole modern world talking scientific fatalism; saying that everything is as it must always have been, being unfolded without fault from the beginning. The leaf on the tree is green because it could never have been anything else. Now, the fairy-tale philosopher is glad that the leaf is green precisely because it might have been scarlet. He feels as if it had turned green an instant before he looked at it. He is pleased that snow is white on the strictly reasonable ground that it might have been black. Every colour has in it a bold quality as of choice; the red of garden roses is not only decisive but dramatic, like suddenly spilt blood. He feels that something has been DONE.
3. [From: The Napoleon of Notting Hill, G.K. Chesterton]
“And thus he discovered the fact that all romantics know: that miracles only happen on the grey dull days, when the chord of monotony is stretched to its utmost and it breaks with the sound of music.
4. Song, C. S. Lewis
Faeries must be in the woods
Or the satyrs’ laughing broods—
Tritons in the summer sea,
Else how could the dead things be
Half so lovely as they are?
How could wealth of star on star
Dusted o’er the frosty night
Fill thy spirit with delight
And lead thee from this care of thine
Up among the dreams divine,
Were it not that each and all
Of them that walk the heavenly hall
Is in truth a happy isle,
Where eternal meadows smile,
And golden globes of fruit are seen
Twinkling through the orchards green;
Were the Other People go
On the bright sward to and fro?
Atoms dead could never thus
Stir the human heart of us
Unless the beauty that we see
The veil of endless beauty be,
Filled full of spirits that have trod
Far hence along the heavenly sod
And see the bright footprints of God.
5. Psalm 97:1-3 (New International Version)
2 Clouds and thick darkness surround him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
6. 1 Corinthians 13:12 (New International Version)
12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
7. [from: Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton]
…I open again the strange small book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His pathos was natural, almost casual. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight, such as the far sight of His native city. Yet He concealed something. Solemn supermen and imperial diplomatists are proud of restraining their anger. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple, and asked men how they expected to escape the damnation of Hell. Yet He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was something that He hid from all men when He went up a mountain to pray. There was something that He covered constantly by abrupt silence or impetuous isolation. There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth.
juni 14, 2006 at 6:26 pm
My bro,
De laatste van Chesterton vind ik erg mooi.
De meester had een onstuitbare lol waarmee hij mensen beledigde als hij niet gauw de bergen in was gerend. Hij was inderdaad een beetje gek? Ik heb het wel vaker gedacht.
Misschien omdat hij de afloop lijkt te kennen van het hele gebeuren dat soms zulke verdrietige en bizarre trekken aanneemt op deze planeet.
ps. En gefeliciteerd met je lieve vriendin
juni 15, 2006 at 11:40 am
“… mijn denken benaderd.”
moest zijn:
“… mijn denken benadert.”
maar dat wist je natuurlijk wel.
juni 22, 2006 at 10:00 am
Wout; nee, dat wist ik niet. Ik ben een slecht grammaticus. Mijn dank is derhalve groot.
Ben; inderdaad zeg. Heb Lewis of Chesterton ook eens zien schrijven dat de drie-een-heid de kern van de wereld is, een vergadering van drie ‘vrienden’, die enorm veel plezier hebben samen. Ik zal het fragment eens opzoeken..
juni 22, 2006 at 10:00 am
Wout; nee, dat wist ik niet. Ik ben een slecht grammaticus. Mijn dank is derhalve groot.
Ben; inderdaad zeg. Heb Lewis of Chesterton ook eens zien schrijven dat de drie-een-heid de kern van de wereld is, een vergadering van drie ‘vrienden’, die enorm veel plezier hebben samen. Ik zal het fragment eens opzoeken..