to step back, now and then, from the possible to take rest in the impossible: to stand without trajectory in the God-given weather till the soul's identity begins to come with the weathering: to get off my own laboriously cleared and maintained trails and back onto the pristine hence unmarked path by moving, any old how, toward interior nakedness; toward silence; toward what Buddhists call "emptiness" and the Christians "poverty in spirit"....David James Duncan

Monday, November 13, 2006

the piety of poverty

--william stringfellow

what sofisticates the suffering of the poor is only the proximity of their life to death every day...

social morality is just another term for piety. the proximity of the poor to death matures a radical and wonderful piety, constituted in the actual life of the poor and consisting of the intense humility of the poor about their own existence as human beings...

psalms 9: among the poor, men know that they are but men

posted by Matthew and Elin at 1:21 PM

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