Great artists

I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist
and that there are as few as there are any other great artists.
It might even be the greatest of the arts
since the medium is the human mind and spirit.

        John Steinbeck, America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction

An Irish story of everlasting friendship

St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise was St. Kevin's soul-friend, and they were very close. When Ciaran approached death, he said: "Let me be carried to a small height."  Then angels went to meet his soul, filling as they did all the space between heaven and earth. He was carried back into the little church, and raising his hands, he blessed his people. Then he told the brethren to shut him up in the church until Kevin should come from Glendalough. 

Kevin arrived three days after Ciaran's death, having left his monastery as soon as he heard that his closest friend was dying, but he had been very delayed. At once Ciaran's spirit returned from heaven and reentered his body so that he could commune with Kevin and welcome him. The two friends stayed together for a long time, engaged in mutual conversation, and strengthening their friendship. 

 Excerpted from: https://orthodoxwiki.org/Kevin_of_Glendalough  

Poem: Remorse for Intemperate Speech

I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.

I sought my betters: though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart.

Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.

            William Butler Yeats 

Burning silence

When something is festering
in your memory or your imagination,
laws of silence don’t work,
it’s like shutting a door and locking it
on a house on fire
in hope of forgetting that the house is burning.
But not facing a fire doesn’t put it out.
Silence about a thing just magnifies it.
It grows and festers in silence, becomes malignant.

            Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good stories

Some of these things are true
and some of them lies.
But they are all good stories.

        Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stay out

True happiness, we are told,
consists in getting out of one's self;
but the point is not only to get out -
you must stay out;
and to stay out
you must have some absorbing errand.

             Henry James, Roderick Hudson

 

 

 

 

The era of tea

The joy of the new, hip, happening, double-espresso Dublin
is that you can blame any strange mood on coffee deprivation.
This never worked in the era of tea,
at least not at the same level of street cred.

            Tana French, In the Woods