#longing

All individuals have moral deficiencies, and when introducing these to reality one not only strengthens himself but also the confidence of others in the human exigency for Christ due to a reflection throughout the body of Christ. ↗

— Criss Jami

#brokenness #christ #christianity #communication #confidence

Tell a wise person, or else keep silent, because the mass man will mock it right away. I praise what is truly alive, what longs to be burned to death. In the calm water of the love-nights, where you were begotten, where you have begotten, a strange feeling comes over you, when you see the silent candle burning. Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness, and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward. Distance does not make you falter. Now, arriving in magic, flying, and finally, insane for the light, you are the butterfly and you are gone. And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow, you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth. ↗

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

#life #rebirth #death

Even her name seemed empty, as though it had detached itself from her and was floating untethered in his mind. How am I supposed to live without you? It was not a matter of the body; his body would carry on as usual. The problem was located in the word how: he would live, but without Elspeth the flavour, the manner, the method of living were lost to him. He would have to relearn solitude. ↗

— Audrey Niffenegger

#longing #mourning #death

As I would soon learn myself, cleaning up what a parent leaves behind stirs up dust, both literal and metaphorical. It dredges up memories. You feel like you’re a kid again, poking around in your parents’ closet, only this time there’s no chance of getting in trouble, so you don’t have to be so sure that everything gets put back exactly where it was before you did your poking around. Still, you hope to find something, or maybe you fear finding something, that will completely change your conception of the parent you thought you knew. ↗

— Roz Chast

#cleaning #death #mourning #parents #perception

The days passed in a dream. I pictured our reunion again and again, played it out in my mind over and over until I’d almost worn a groove in my thoughts, so deep that it seemed the only thing I could think of was our reunion. Anticipation is a gift. Perhaps there is none greater. Anticipation is born of hope. Indeed it is hope’s finest expression. In hope’s loss, however, is the greatest despair. ↗

— Steven L. Peck

#despair #hope #longing #loss #love

Pack is for comfort when you hurt, I thought, putting my head back down. And for the first time in a long time, maybe the first time ever, I appreciated being a part of one. ↗

— Patricia Briggs

#comfort #family #mercy-thompson #pack #silver-borne

We live in one world together. It's more important than ever to be friend to all. ↗

— Elizabeth Blake

#belonging #differences #identity #family

The longing for sweets is really a yearning for love or "sweetness. ↗

— Marion Woodman

#food #longing #love #sweetness #sweets

Hunger of the heart is much stronger than hunger for food. ↗

— Amanda Comer

#food #heart #hunger #longing #food

I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretence that things are real, due to one's longing for them. ↗

— Dodie Smith

#faith #god #imagination #longing #religion