God doesn’t desire sorrow
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As you can see below, I just caught up on posting a lot of short quotes so that they can show up in the “A Word” column at right. (And by the way, I’ll insert my usual plug that these quotes almost always come from “Daily Lives” — my one-a-day Orthodox vitamin pill). But there’s always one or two that are too long for that column, and so it was this time. So here’s a valuable leftover from St. John Climacus:
God does not insist or desire that we should mourn in agony of heart; rather, it is His wish that out of love for Him we should rejoice with laughter in our soul. Take away sin, and tears become superfluous; where there is no bruise, no ointment is required. Before the fall, Adam shed no tears; and in the same way there will be no more tears after the resurrection from the dead, when sin has been destroyed. For pain, sorrow and lamentation will then have fled away.
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That’s a pretty good quote. Note to self: Order “Daily Lives” next year. Better note to self: Order this year’s otherwise I’ll forget. Random note: Love the photo of the girl giggling. Reminds me of a darling daughter when she was young.…which she ain’t no more (leaves for college in less than 30 days). Hope Dad and Mom maybe permitted to fight off the waterworks on drop-off day.…it was brutal last time…but on the “Baby”, I just don’t even want to think about it. Maybe if we call them tears of joy we’ll be forgiven.…but the heart feels differently even though there is yet much more great joy to be had…there is simply a page that’s turning and hard to turn all the same. What can I say? Sometimes we don’t even know why.
Glad you like the photo — it’s a stock photo, but it happens to look a lot like a photo of me in an old family portrait where my mother tickled my foot to get me to smile and got more than she bargained for. So whoever that little girl is, she looks like other people.
Empty nester: I don’t have kids, but I can imagine how hard that must be. Well, I *think* I can. Come to think of it, I’m the “baby” too, and my parents seemed to have been dancing a jig. Hmm. Odd response to separation anxiety.
Daily Lives: The book is put out by a rather small company, and you may have trouble getting the 2006 one right now. But I think they start taking orders for the 2007 one in September or something. You may want to give them a call just to see.