The Whole World Is Charged

The Primordial Blessing, 'increase And Multiply', Has Suddenly Become A Hemorrhage Of Terror. We Are Numbered In Billions, And Massed Together, Marshalled, Numbered, Marched Here And There, Taxed, Drilled, Armed, Worked To The Point Of Insensibility, Dazed By Information, Drugged By Entertainment, Surfeited With Everything, Nauseated With The Human Race And With Ourselves, Nauseated With Life.

We Who Claim To Love Peace And Justice Must Always Be Careful That We Do Not Use Our Righteousness To Provoke The Violent, And In This Way Bring About The Conflict For Which We, Too, Like Other Men, Are Hungering In Secret, And With Suppressed Barbarity.

How Can I Be Sincere If I Am Constantly Changing My Mind To Conform With The Shadow Of What I Think Others Expect Of Me?

A Superficial Freedom To Wander Aimlessly Here Or There, To Taste This Or That, To Make A Choice Of Distractions, Is Simply A Sham. It Claims To Be A Freedom Of "choice" When It Has Evaded The Basic Task Of Discovering Who It Is That Chooses.

One Of The Strange Laws Of The Contemplative Life Is That In It You Do Not Sit Down And Solve Problems: You Bear With Them Until They Somehow Solve Themselves. Or Until Life Solves Them For You.