Eric Sloane

A few days ago I walked along the edge of the lake and was treated to the crunch and rustle of leaves with each step I made. The acoustics of this season are different and all sounds, no matter how hushed, are as crisp as autumn air.

Booker T. Washinton

"No race can prosper till it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem."

Dorothy Sayers

"A society in Which consumption has to be artificially stimulated in order to keep production going is a society founded upon waste and trash, and such a society is a house built on sand".

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me.
It was not I that found, O Saviour true,
No, I was found of Thee.

Thou didst reach forth thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed-sea,-
'Twas not so much that I on thee took hold,
As thou, dear Lord on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but, O the whole
Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee;
For thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
Always thou lovedst me.

Thoreau

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.

Leo Tolstoy

In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.

A performance by the Horsemen Gospel Quartet during the End Times Bible Conference was cut short when 300 dispensationalists in the audience interpreted it as a sign of the Apocalypse and ran screaming for their lives.

Eric Sloane

Perhaps one of the greatest changes in American building and farming philosophy has been the abandonment of the enthusiasm for permanence.

Randall Jarrell

Soon we shall now everything that the 18th century did not know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us.

Thoreau

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

Americans

Are Americans so involved in progress, speed, competitveness, consumption, commercialism and entertaining ourselves to death, that we are unable to truly live and enjoy life?
Are we too busy worshiping the creation that we have forgotten the Creator?
Have we forgotten that we are creatures who owe homage to Someone else?
Are we in awe of anything?

Aldo Leopold

“To me an ancient cottonwood is the greatest of trees because in his youth he shaded the buffalo and wore a halo of pigeons, and I like a young cottonwood because he may some day become ancient. But the farmer’s wife (and hence the farmer) despises all cottonwoods because in June the female tree clogs the screens with cotton. The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.”

Is Industrialism Immoral?

Industrialism is a philosophy based upon an idea that resources have no limits and that our ability to consume has no limits. I believe this idea to be naive and narcissistic ; but is it immoral?
Is it immoral to consciously deplete resources and to degrade creation without making a return for future generations? Is it immoral to destroy cultures for temporal gain?

It is not a sin to be naive but it is to be narcissistic, materialistic, greedy and destructive.

Donald Davidson

'If painting and sculptures are made for the purpose of being viewed in the carefully studied surroundings of art galleries, they have certainly lost their intimate connection with life. What is a picture for, if not to put on one's own wall?...The proposition is as absurd as this: Should we eat our meals regularly from crude, thick dishes like those used in Greek restaurants, but go on solemn occasions to a restaurant museum where somebody's munificence would permit us to enjoy a meal on china of the most delicate design? The truly artistic life is surely that in which the aesthetic experience is not curtained off but is mixed up with all sorts of instruments and occupations pertaining to the round of daily life.

Eric Sloane

Farm life offers the complete satisfaction of knowing that each day's work has been truly productive, a joy scarce in present times. Yet strangely enough, the early American farmer's greatest satisfaction came not from his daily chores, but in his ability to make provisions for the future and an awareness of his part in fashioning the nation to come. He equipped his home with far heavier foundations than were necessary. He built his barn to last for centuries and he laid a rail fence to survive ten generations. He built stone walls that have lasted so long that they are now a permanent part of the landscape. None of these things are done now, nor do we often consider doing them

Mankind, especially Americans in the electronic age, have an endless capacity for distraction. Distraction relieves us of the burden of seriousness, self-examination, seeking meaning and from having to think about any one thing for an extended amount of time.

Pleasure is antithetical to boredom; distraction gives us the illusion of not being bored. Distraction keeps us amused as we squander the distinct qualities that make us human.

The vast majority of American evangelical churches have become static institutions that nurture unholiness and sloth among their congregants. They consistently promote immaturity, narcissism and entertainment. But this should be the expected fare coming from leaders that are almost entirely acculturated into a humanistic society. Can a person actually mature in their faith while attending a church that discourages growth?

Wendell Berry

“When despair for the world grows in me, and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be -- I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought or grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Henry David Thoreau went to the woods to confront what was real and to leave superficiality behind. Today man is not even aware of the superficiality of his tragic life, nor the fact that he is about to be consumed my the monster of narcissism.

William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

To Be Sane

To Be Sane

"To be sane in a mad time
is bad for the brain, worse
for the heart."

Wendell Berry

William Blake

“For he hears the lambs innocent call.
And he hears the ewes tender reply.
He is watchful while they are in peace.
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh.”

My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.

King Richard III
Shakespear

T. S. Elliot

We are the hollow men, we are stuffed men, leaning together, headpiece full of straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when we whisper together, are quite meaningless, as dry grass...

Elliot said this before he became a Christian.

O Lord, deliver me from the man of excellent intention and impure heart: for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.

He said the above after he became a Christian.

Greene & Greene Architecture

“Architecture is the art which so disposes and
adorns the edifices raised by man, that the sight of them may contribute to his mental health, power, and pleasure.” ~ Ruskin

Longfellow

Be not like dumb driven cattle.

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. ~Elise Boulding

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. ~William Morris

The Chief End of Man

"The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever."
It would be Scripturally false to leave out the second phrase - "and to enjoy Him forever."
The men who formulated this showed great wisdom and insight in saying, "and to enjoy Him forever." Nevertheless the first phrase is most important; in Christianity we have a non-determined God who did not need to create because there was love and communication within the Trinity, and yet having been created, we as men can glorify God. But we must feel the force of both sides of the issue. If we fail to emphasize that we can glorify God, we raise the whole question of whether man is significant at all. We begin to lose our humanity as soon as we begin to lose the emphasis that what we do makes a difference. We can glorify God and we can make God sad.
That is tremendous.
Francis Schaeffer

John Ruskin

All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time.

Clifford Stoll

I suspect computers will deviously chew away at libraries from the inside. They'll eat up book budgets and require librarians that are more comfortable with computers than with children and scholars. Libraries will become adept at supplying the public with fast, low-quality information. The result won't be a library without books -- it'll be a library without value (Stoll 1995,214).

There is a false dichotomy between the physical and the spiritual that has crept into Christianity through the writings of Plato and others. Presently it is seen as a division where going to church, reading the Bible and praying are "spiritual," but science, the job field and especially the arts are "worldly." This has lead to a felt need to "Christianize" everything to make it ok. The word "Jesus" has to be in the lyrics of a song. A painting can only be of "Christian" things. Art becomes shallow.

When all is done, when all the alternatives have been explored, "not many men are in the room" -- that is, although world-views have many variations, there are not many basic world-views or basic presuppositions. -Francis Schaeffer,

To me, at times , there steals a warning word;
Mine ear its whisper seems to catch.
In troubled thoughts from spectres of the night,
When falls on men the vision-seeing-trance,-
And fear has come, and trembling dread
And made my every bone to thrill with awe-
'Tis then before me stirs a breathing form;
O'er all my flesh it makes the hair rise up.
It stands; no face distinct can I discern;
An outline is before mine eyes;
Deep silence! then a voice I hear:
Is mortal man more just than God?
Is boasting man more pure than He who made him?
In his own servants, lo, he trusteth not,
Even on his angels dothe he charge defect.
Much more to them who dwell in homes of clay,
With their foundation laid in dust, and crumbled like the moth
From morn till night they're stricken down;
Without regard they perish utterly.
Their cord of life, is it not torn away?
They die-still lacking wisdom.

"Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius."
Sir Edward Gibbon

'Tis very certain that Plato, Plotinus, Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth, did not live in a crowd, but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and the wise instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul in the disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits of solitude." -- from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Conduct of Life"

Neil Postman

So idolatry has triumphed. I think Luther would join Moses in saying that the cult of the word is defenseless in the face of the image.

Camille Paglia

The twentieth century is not the Age of Anxiety but the Age of Hollywood. The pagan cult of personality has reawakened and dominates all art, all thought. It is morally empty but ritually profound..... Movie screen and television screen are its sacred precincts.

The Adult Child

I have been trying to determine for some time if adults are acting more childlike or are children acting more adult like; I have come to the conclusion that adults and children have met in the middle to form a new sociological group of the Adult-Child. This group contains elements of the traditional catagories of adult and child but both have compromised to reach a disturbing middle ground that has not been seen in western culture since the dark ages.

A word is worth a thousand pictures.

A picture is worth a thousand feelings. Shane Hipps

Thoreau

All of our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts... they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun; but there exists no loom
to weave it into fabric.

Randall Jarrell

Soon we shall know everything that the 18th century did not know, and nothing it did, and it will be hard to live with us.

Oh this self love, this self will, it is the devil of devils, may thy Lord purge it out of all of us. Whitefield

For the philosopher the only serious question left is suicide. Albert Camus

When Christ calls a man He bids him to come and die. Bonhoeffer

It is easy to make one's self universal. Leonardo DaVinci (I think he failed)

The world is screaming for answers and Christians are not even aware of the questions. Schaeffer

Whenever we place a higher priority on solving our own problems than on pursuing God, we are immoral. Larry Crabb

Art

Art is a reflection of God's creativity, an evidence that we are made in God's image.
Francis Schaeffer

If relativism is true, then it is false. True?

Beauty

Does an absolute standard for beauty exist? If so, what is that standard?

What does "playing the harlot with Molech" look like in twenty-first century, post-modern America?

Even if all of the entertainment on television was inoffensive to Christian ethics and of the highest artistic merit, its form of communication (and form of knowing) encourages the aversion to abstraction, analysis and reflection that characterizes our culture at all levels. Thinking is often hard work. Television's surfeit of instant entertainment not only provides relief from such hard work; it offers an attractive, alternative way of knowing that makes reasoning seem anachronistic, narrow and unnecessary. Kenneth Meyers

There is scarcely anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse, and sell a little more cheaply. The person who buys on price alone is this man's lawful prey. John Ruskin

A room without books is like a person without a soul. G.K. Chesterton

The self sees itself as a sovereign and individual consciousness, liberated by education from the traditional bonds of religion, by democracy from the strictures of class, by technology from the drudgery of poverty and by self-knowledge from the tyranny of the unconscious - and therefore free to pursue it's own destiny without God. Walker Percy

Let us be honest enough to confront our culture in its entirety and ask: is it merely coincidence that, in the midst of so much technological mastery and economic abundance, our art and thought continue to project a nihilistic image unparalleled in human history? Are we to believe there is not a connection between these facts? Theodore Rozak

The Vice of Contentment

It appears to me that contentment is considered to be a vice almost as terrible as being a person that believes in God. If one is content with what they have the economy may stumble and lead to a decline in the exploitation of limited resources and dangerous jobs in third world countries. If one is content you may have the time to think about something other than yourself (such as truth, beauty and what is moral). If you are content, maybe you would shut off the television and spend some time helping a neighbor. But the economy must thrive or we may not be able to see the latest Hollywood kitsch or we may be denied the new, cutting edge, electronic game.

Modern Man's Discontent

"At the heart of it there are likely to be moments of blank misgiving in which he (modern man) finds that the civilization of which he is a part leaves a dusty taste in his mouth. He may be very busy with many things, but he disovers one day that he is no longer sure they are worth doing. He has been much preoccupied; but he is no longer sure he knows why. He has become involved in an elaborate routine of pleasures; and they do not seem to amuse him very much. He finds it hard to believe that doing any one thing is better than doing any other thing, or, in fact, that it is better than doing nothing at all. It occurs to him that it is a great deal of trouble to live, and that even in the best of lives the thrills are few and far between. He begins more or less consciously to seek satisfactions, because he is no longer satisfied and all the while he realizes that the pursuit of happiness was always a most unhappy quest." Walter Lippmann

Blaise Pascal

We desire truth and find in ourselves nothing but uncertainty. We seek happiness and find only wretchedness and death. We are incapable of not desiring truth and happiness and inacapable of either certainty or happiness.