M.J. Rose

I’ve posted here a couple of quotes a friend of mine who is going through an intense time in her life recently emailed to me. It’s interesting how highly emotional experiences seem to cause us to be more receptive to everything in our world for a time. It’s as if our minds and souls use times of upheaval as a chance to throw open a window inside us so that as much wisdom as possible rushes inside. There is more creativity, for example, in times when we are experiencing emotional highs or lows.

“‘Our existences precede our essences,’ as Sartre put it. I don’t know

what I’m here for until I’ve lived my life. My life, who I am, is not

determined by God, by the laws of Nature, by my genetics, by my

society, not even by my family. They each may provide the raw material for who I am, but it is how I choose to live that makes me what I am. I create myself.”

– Ludwig Binswanger

“I am aware of the need for constant self-revision and growth, leaving

behind the renunciations of yesterday and yet in continuity with all

my yesterdays. For to cling to the past is to lose one’s continuity

with the past, since this means clinging to what is no longer there.

My ideas are always changing, always moving around one center, and I

am always seeing that center from somewhere else.

Hence, I will always be accused of inconsistency. But I will no longer

be there to hear the accusation.”

– Thomas Merton

The Hidden Ground of Love