How do you pray for a dead person?

Dear God, thank you for this wonderful day that Adam and Eve never got to see. I hope they're happy, and please let them know that I forgive them for bringing sin into this world. Please keep them safe, and watch over them. I know that you have them under your special protection. Send my love, and tell them I miss them and that I wish I could have met them.
Amen.







No, but seriously.
huh?
catch me on fire?
huh?

Psalm 130

De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine.
Domine, exaudi vocem meam. Fiat aures tuae intendentes
in vocem deprecationis meae.
Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?
Quia apud te propitiatio est, et propter legem tuam sustinui te, Domine.
Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus:
Speravit anima mea in Domino.
A custodia matutina usque ad noctem, speret Israel in Domino.
Quia apud Dominum misericordia, et copiosa apud eum redemptio.
Et ipse redimet Israel ex omnibus iniquitatibus ejus.



From the depths, I have cried out to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplication.
If you, Lord, were to mark iniquities, who, O Lord, shall stand?
For with you is forgiveness; and because of your law,  I stood by you, Lord.
My soul has stood by his word.
My soul has hoped in the Lord.
From the morning watch, even until night, let Israel hope in the Lord.
For with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.








De profundis clamo ad te, Domine.

Christine Sparks - The Elephant Man

"I opened a door and let a condemned man see paradise, knowing that his chains would never let him cross the threshold. How could I do it? What was all this for?
Am I a good man or a bad man?"

She ... [tried] to reach him with her love, knowing that there was a grief inside him she could not touch.
"You're a good man, a very good man."

He said, so softly that she barely heard it, "I feel so ugly."

I suppose we shan't ever operate on the same level.

Well, that was a waste of breath.





How discouraging.

And to think that I never knew.

But I suppose this is quite entirely my responsibility.

Here I go.





This isn't supposed to be this brutal.
So why is it.











orwhatever





I like more than I like salt.

Herman Melville - Moby Dick or, The Whale

The things called omens! Oh! how valiantly I seek to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine! gone, gone? and to go before - but still be seen again ere I could perish - How's that? - There's a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line of judges: - like a hawk's beak it pecks my brain. I'll, I'll solve it, though!

to think's audacity. God only has that right and privilege.

Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable world.

And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind! Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow.

Oh! Not too late is it, even now, to desist. See! Thy greatest vice seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!

Why so serious.

If I live in fear, I do not live at all.

I can bend in the breeze or complain about the chill.

I can work for my dream or become a hobo.

I can either sleep all day and be tired or wake up at 6 and be tired.

I can either work hard or be lazy.

If the world is going to end in fire, I could end it all right now.

Okay, so maybe that's not right.




whysoserious

O Gentle Saviour

While on others Thou art calling, do not pass Me by.

I'm just bad at life, okay.

I like to smile because it's easy always sometimes usuallymostofthetime.





I like to talk because talk is cheap and that probably makes me worth something negative.



When a time comes when i can't laugh, it's hard.


I want to care.

Wait. I do care.

butwaitidon'treallycareatall


It's easy to say and act like I know what caring is.
But really?


I don't care.

But then again I do sometimes make things hard for myself
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.


I have no patience or love or acceptance or whatever.
Wait. I do.
Of course I do.



How else could I have lasted


until






now






Let's start over.


Dear Self,
Well, yeah. You're cool. Um bye. Hope you have a good life.



With my hand on my heart, farewell.
Yourself.

If he's not Superman, he must be a mama's boy.

When the night sky brightens up once more, the moonlight is too fierce.
I am forced to close my eyes.





Don't forget to breathe. You're some kind of angel; I'll never be able to let you go.

Vanity is a sin, but not all of us are angels.

Do what you want, but don't complain about the results. You deserve it.

I can do what I want, but I can't complain about my results. I deserve what I get.

Dante - Inferno (Canto XXIV)

"Omai convien che tu cosi ti spoltre,"
disse 'l maestro; "che, seggendo in piuma,
in fama non si vien, ne sotto cotre;
sanza la qual chi sua vita consuma,
cotal vestigio in terra di se lascia,
qual fumo in aere e in acqua la schiuma.
E pero leav su; vinci l'ambascia
con l'animo che vince ogne battaglia,
se col suo grave corpo non s'accasia



"You must shake off your sluggishness," the Teacher said,
"for no one comes to fame who sits in soft
pillows of down, or lies at ease in bed,
And when his life is wasted utterly
he leaves such traces of himself behind
as smoke in air or foam upon the sea.
Get up, then! Conquer your distress with that
brave soul that wins through every fight, unless
it should turn weak beneath the flesh's weight.


but such is the easiest way to convince oneself of one's fame without being famous except to oneself.

Dante - Inferno (Canto IX)

Perche recalcitrate a quella vogila
a cui non puote il fin mai esser mozzo,
e che piu volte v'ha cresciuta doglia?
Che giova ne le fata dar di cozzo?

Why do you kick your heels against the will
of Him whose ends can never be cut short,
who many a time has made your torments grow?
What good is it to butt your heads at fate?

You and me. Me and my coffee.

This is my fifth cup already. It touches my hardened tongue but not my heart.



I like trees because they seem more resigned to they way they have to live than other things do.



So today, I'm rocking my life away. I'm as free as the wind.

My heart feels so heavy, but there's nobody to tell my troubles to.
Sometimes I want to bestow carefree smiles, but there's nobody by my side.

Oscar Wilde - The Picture of Dorian Gray

All art is useless.







It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves.






And the mind of a thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing.






And how delightful other people's emotions are!





Then I feel that I have given away my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a summer's day.





I can sympathize with everything, except suffering. I cannot sympathize with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain.





The less said about life's sores the better.




Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different.






I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time.

That would be hypocrisy.






The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself.

America is free. Could we not be?

I'd rather taste defeat and then brush my teeth.

Once it was overcome, she would be beyond all walking and would fly.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Who saw Infinity through the countless cracks in the blank skin of things and died of it?








Had we but world enough, and time.

Deo Optimo Maximo

I'm fine. Thank you.
You're fine. Thank you.




Hello to the world. Hands up high. High and low.


I think I'm going crazy.
I think I'm just exhausted.
I think I'm sick of you.

Don't think too much. It's simple.



I'm looking for you beneath this star-lit sky.
I'm looking for you, and I don't know where to stop.


Such a beautiful night. The clock goes on.

Pablo Neruda

I love you as certain things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

Hugo

If you've ever wondered where your dreams come from, look around. This is where they're made.

Ezio Auditore

To say that everything is permitted is to understand that we are the architects of our actions, and that we must live with their consequences, whether glorious or tragic.

Prince Eric to Ariel

You're the One. The One I've been looking for.

Sylvia Plath

And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter- they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you for so long.












so i've been telling everyone everything and now i don't even look for someone to pour my soul out to because there's nothing left to tell.

all that there was to tell has been said by what i've told now.

Dir en Grey

Everyone wants to reach out their hand and grab happiness,
But they just end up becoming the monster that lies deep in darkness.

Jean-Paul Sartre

I found the human heart empty and insipid everywhere except in books

Fyodor Dostoevsky - Demons

Man is unhappy because he doesn't know he's happy; only because of that. It's everything, everything!




Everything is good, everything.


For all those who know that everything is good. If they knew it was good with them, it would be good with them, but as long as they don't know it's good with them, it will not be good with them. That's the whole thought, the whole, there isn't any more!







I pray to everything. See, there's a spider crawling on the wall, I look and am thankful to it for crawling.


My friend, the real truth is always implausible, did you know that?






Don't worry, don't worry, I'm not mad, by God, I'm not mad!







Ces gens-la supposent la nature ete la societe humaine autre que Dieu ne les a faites et u'elles ne sont reellement.

These people imagine that nature and human society are otherwise than God made them and than they actually are.







If you want to overcome the world, overcome yourself.






I am a whimsical child with all the egoism of a child, but none of the innocence.

Si deus me relinquit
Ego deum relinquo
Solus opressus
Nigram claven
Habere potest
Omnias ianuas praecludo
Sic omnias
Precationes obsigno
Sed
Qui me defendet
Ab me terriblissmo
Ipse






If God has forsaken me
Then I forsake God, too
Only the opressed
May possess
A black key
I close all doors
Thus I seal
Away all prayers
However
Who protects me
From the most frightful
Myself

unrecorded

Et je commence a croire. Vous et le bonheur, cous arrivez en meme temps.


And I am beginning to believe.  You and happiness, you arrive at the same time.

Instead of an Introduction

On m'a traite comme un vieux bonnet de coton!



Where, finally, am I, i myself, my former self, strong as steel and unshakable as rock, while now some Andrejeff, un Orthodox clown in a beard, peut briser mon existence en deux.

Stepan Trofimovich

whatever do you intend for me to think

i'm not going to be weighed down

so i'll just learn again

Dostoevsky

I've tormented and tortured myself, without knowing myself what I'm doing...

assez cause.

Dostoevsky

Let her beat me, to ease my soul.

Dostoevsky

Pity! Why pity me! ... Why pity me, you say? Yes! There's nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross and not pitied! But crucify, O judge, crucify, and having crucified, pity the man!

Dostoevsky

Do you undersyand, do you understand, my dear sir, what it means when there is no longer anywhere to go? No!

Dostoevsky

Do I not feel it? ... It is not joy I seek, but sorrow only...

Matthew 10:26

There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.

La belle dame sans merci.

In poverty you may still preserve the nobility of inborn feelings, but in destitution no one ever does.



For in destitution one does not even get driven out of human company with a stick; one is swept out with a broom to make it more insulting; and justly so, for in destitution I am the first to insult myself. 


Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky

Odi profanum vulgus

I despise the unholy rabble


Man has it all in his hands, and it all slips through his fingers from sheer cowardice.

The Beautiful and Damned - Fitzgerald

um, like, regret?

what?
huuh?
catch me on fire?



l'esprit de l'escalier.
as far as i'm concerned...
that's one French phrase made up of three words.


............
regret is one word?


kay
i'm done.
just thought i'd point out funny tumblr things.
hohoho

"Thank you for bringing me. The lotus flowers are beautiful."

"Is that so?
But compared to the lotus flower, I much prefer flowers that can speak."

You can cry.
But only in my arms




I will break it then, that thing called Destiny.







Didn't I tell you?
I said, no matter what happens, believe in me.

Rilke

Every angel is terrifying
Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich

constant as the stars above, always know that you are loved

dingalingaling

it's a very dizzying world

We did some laughing, I can tell you. There were also a few tears shed, but that is life, sunshine and showers.

Suppose I slept and dreamed lots of very long dreams for a very long time.
And then I awoke.

I'm sure that dreams are nice.
But you always wake up from dreams.
Why is that a tiring thought.

i am so very tired

i don't get this

Break me into so many pieces that only You can put back together. Destroy me, break me—leave me desperate for Your direction and wisdom. Bring humility. Don’t relent until You have all of me; the way You want me to be.

what kind of king would wear a crown that scars to win my heart

Behold, You have come over the hills upon the mountain. To me, You will run. My Beloved, You’ve captured my heart.

Won’t You dance with me, Oh Lover of my soul, to the song of all songs? Romance me, Oh Lover of my soul to the song of all songs.

Dance With Me

Hosea 2:14-16

Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the desert
and speak tenderly to her.


There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she will sing as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.



In that day, declares the LORD,
you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.’

but sometimes what if

"Remember that Jesus’ whole life, he was misunderstood. And we turn to Christ who was misunderstood by his own kind, by his own creation. And he knows how you feel. But the greatest thing is that in Jesus’ whole life, he was misunderstood. But he rarely went out of his way to allow everyone to understand and explain himself. Being misunderstood is one of the greatest ways we suffer with and for Christ. Christ was misunderstood his whole ministry by the Jewish leaders, church leaders, disciples… no one got it. If you go through this process of misunderstanding and stay strong, you will ever more so become like Christ.”
Pastor David

sometimes i wish i would wake up crying

There’s this kind of songbird that thinks it dies every time the sun goes down. In the morning when it wakes up, it would totally be shocked that it would still be alive, so it will sing this really beautiful song.


crying out of gratitude
joy
something.
being overwhelmed with hope




but crying is annoying.
i hate it.

franciscan benediction

May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships,
So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done,
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Amen.

Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom (2002)

"The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning."

I knew he was right.
Not that I did anything about it.

A Summer to Die - Lois Lowry (1977)

" 'It tried to be a rose... and failed, and all the summer laughed: but just before the snows there came a purple creature that ravished all the hill; and summer hid her forehead, and mockery was still.' "

"...[Y]ou should have been a poet."

... "A truck mechanic would have been more practical."

...

[I]t would be summer still, summer always.


...

"You made me beautiful[.]"

...

"[Y]ou were beautiful all along."

A Summer to Die - Lois Lowry (1977)

"...I'm sorry I forgot."
"You didn't forget... It wasn't time until now."

A Summer to Die - Lois Lowry (1977)

"...We're so accustomed to laughing. It's harder for us when the time comes that we can't laugh."

...
And I knew that, hard as it was for me, with my helplessness, my anger, and the dreams that came like faceless prowlers into my sleep and filled me with fear, it was worse for [her].

the five people you meet in heaven - Mitch Albom (2003)

"...I felt like I wasn't supposed to be there."
...
"Supposed to be there[.]"
...
"Fixing rides? That was my existence? ... Why?"
...
She tilted her head, as if it were obvious.
"Children[.] You keep them safe. You make good for me."
...
"Is where you were supposed to be ." she said, and then she touched his shirt patch with a small laugh...


...
"Not her hands," she said. "My hands. ... Keep you safe."

the five people you meet in heaven - Mitch Albom (2003)

"... [T]he secret of heaven: ... each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."

you don't call a man a hated name

Henry David Thoreau - Civil Disobedience

The mass of men who serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these men are commonly esteemed as good citizens. Others - as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and officeholders - serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the Devil, without intending it, as God. A very few; as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.





THAT IS THE HEART OF IT. NOW BEGIN IN THE MIDDLE, AND LATER WE LEARN THE BEGINNING; THE END WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF.



- "Repent, Harlequin!" said the Ticktockman.

Shakespear - Antony and Cleopatra (2.2.--)

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety

George Orwell - 1984

The huge and simple question would have ceased once and for all to be answerable. But in effect it was unanswerable even now. Remember a million useless things, but all the relevant facts are outside the range of vision.


The claims to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested.

George Orwell - 1984

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Lemony Snicket - The Austere Academy

A good night's sleep helps you perform well in school, and so if you're a student you should always get a good night's sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall to the wayside.







this is about writing, not reading.