Third Sunday in Easter
April 6, 2008 by Nathan
‘[F]or many years I looked at life like a case at law, a series of proofs. When you’re young you prove how brave you are, or smart; then, what a good lover; then a good father; finally, how wise, or powerful… But underlying it all, I see now, there was a presumption. That I was moving on an upward path toward some elevation, where-God knows what-I would be justified, or even condemned-a verdict anyway. I think now that my disaster really began when I looked up one day-and the bench was empty. No judge in sight. And all that remained was this endless argument with oneself-this pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench. Which, of course, is another way of saying-despair.’
- Arthur Miller, After the Fall
‘Self-satisfaction is really the highest thing we can hope for.’
- Spinoza
‘But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me.’
1 Corinthians 4
