This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
If we do not at least try to manifest something of Creative Charity in our dealings with life, whether by action, thought, or prayer, and do it at our own cost -- if we roll up the talent of love in the nice white napkin of piety and put it safely out of the way, sorry that the world is so hungry and thirsty, so sick and so fettered, and leave it at that: then, even that little talent may be taken from us. We may discover at the crucial moment that we are spiritually bankrupt.
Control | Day | God | Nothing | Organization | People | Will | Witness | World | God |
Evelyn Glennie, fully Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie
A large part of my work has been collaborating with composers; I think we've commissioned about 140 pieces now, a lot of them percussion concertos.
Evelyn Glennie, fully Evelyn Elizabeth Ann Glennie
And as I grew older, I then auditioned for the Royal Academy of Music in London, and they said, well, no, we won't accept you, because we haven't a clue - you know - of the future of a so-called 'deaf' musician. And I just couldn't quite accept that.
Will |
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
I should like to bury something precious in every place where I've been happy and then, when I'm old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.
A spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from the centre, where we are anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of his will.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
Perhaps all our lovers are merely hints and symbols; vagabond languages scrawled on gate-posts and paving stones along the weary road that others have trampled before us; perhaps you and I are types and this sadness which sometimes falls between us springs from disappointment in our search, each straining through and beyond each other, snatching a glimpse now and then of the shadow which turns the corner always a pace or two ahead of us.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
These memories are the memorials and pledges of the vital hours of a lifetime. These hours of afflatus in the human spirit, the springs of art, are, in their mystery, akin to the epochs of history, when a race which for centuries has lived content, unknown, behind its own frontiers, digging, eating, sleeping, begetting, doing what was requisite for survival and nothing else, will, for a generation or two, stupefy the world; commit all manner of crimes, perhaps; follow the wildest chimeras, go down in the end in agony, but leave behind a record of new heights scaled and new rewards won for all mankind; the vision fades, the soul sickens, and the routine of survival starts again.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
What is adolescence without trash?
Little | Nature | Purpose | Purpose | Self-approval | Words |
The strikes hurt the daily lives of the citizens badly, and damage public order... We would hope that all is being done to solve the problems.
I come in the little things, Saith the Lord: Not borne on morning wings of majesty, but I have set my feet amidst the delicate and bladed wheat That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod. There do I dwell, in weakness and in power; not broken or divided, saith our God! In your strait garden plot I come to flowers about your porch my vine, meek, fruitful, doth entwine; waits, at the threshold, Love's appointed hour. I come in the little things, saith the Lord: Yea! On the glancing wings of eager birds, the softly pattering feet of furred and gentle beasts, I come to meet Your hear and wayward heart. In brown bright eyes that peep from out the brake, I stand confest. On every nest where feathery patience is content to brood and leaves her pleasure for the high emprize of motherhood -- There doth My Godhead rest. I come in the little things, Saith the Lord.
You can also offer your prayers, obedience, and endurance of dryness to Our Lord, for the good of other souls, and then you have practiced intercession. Never mind if it all seems for the time very second-hand. The less you get out of it, the nearer it approaches to being something worth offering; and the humiliation of not being able to feel as devout as we want to be, is excellent for most of us. Use vocal prayer... very slowly, trying to realize the meaning with which it is charged and remember that... you are only a unit in the Chorus of the Church, so that the others will make good the shortcomings you cannot help.
There is no need for peculiar conditions in order to grow in the spiritual life, for the pressure of God's Spirit is present everywhere and at all times. Our environment itself -- our home and our job -- is the medium through which we experience His molding action and His besetting loveÂ… And this quality of quietness, ordinariness, simplicity, with which the saving action of God enters history, endures from the beginning to the end.
Will |
This, of course, is what religion is about: this adherence to God, this confident dependence on that which is unchanging. This is the more abundant life which, in its own particular language and own particular way, it calls us to live. Because it is our part in the one life in the whole universe of spirits, our share in the great drive towards Reality, the tendency of all life to seek God Who made it for Himself and now incites and guides it, we are already adapted to it. Just as a fish is adapted to life in the sea. This view of our situation fills us with a certain awed and humble gladness. It delivers us from all niggling fuss about ourselves, prevents us from feeling self-important about our own little spiritual adventures; and yet makes them worthwhile as part of one great spiritual adventure.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.
Evelyn Waugh, fully Evelyn Arthur St. John Waugh
Instead of this absurd division into sexes they ought to class people as static and dynamic.