I'll tell you one thing, it's a cruel, cruel world.
An oyster leads a dreadful but exciting life.
Life is hard, we say. An oyster's life is worse. She lives motionless, soundless, her own cold ugly shape her only dissipation.
I cannot imagine a more realistic faith than the Christian faith. At every turn, we are told we are death-determined creatures and that our lives, our all too brief lives, at the very least will be complex if not difficult.
If you will just start with the idea that this is a hard world, it will all be much simpler.
For much of their history, life for most people in China was arduous and circumscribed - and people travelled as little as they could.
The spiritual life is a stern choice. It is not a consoling retreat from the difficulties of existence; but an invitation to enter fully into that difficult existence, and there apply the Charity of God and bear the cost.
Ours was not a normal or easy life.
