—Henri Cartier-Bresson, who died on 3 August 2004.“To my mind, photography has the power to evoke, and must not simply document. We have to be abstract, just like nature.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photography “must not simply document”
Georgia O’Keeffe on living under the stars
— Georgia O’Keeffe“Maybe it seems mad that I go out like this and live out under the stars and the sky for a few days — but I am like that.”
Ignatius Loyola: A Saint Reads the Saints
31 July marks the feast day of Saint Ignatius Loyola (b.1491), the founder of the Society of Jesus (more commonly known as the Jesuits). In a breviary, I was interested to read a passage from the Acts of Saint Ignatius taken down by Luis Gonzalez, which describes the reading habits of the young saint:
(more…)Primo Levi: The Weak and the Powerful
— Primo Levi, If This Is a Man“A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.”
John Lewis, 1940—2020
“I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living.”
—
John Lewis
Civil rights leader and American politician
1940—2020
The Life of Saint Pambo
Reading Butler’s Lives of the Saints, I come across a passage on St Pambo, an Egyptian monk (c.390) thought to be a disciple of St Antony. I was struck by the following passage:
“His life was typical of the desert monks: hard manual labour, long fasts and physical penance, and sustained periods of prayer. Pambo was especially noted for his silence and a reluctance to speak any more than was necessary, seeing in control of the tongue a basic first step towards a deeper spirituality; he is said to have meditated on this verse from the Psalms for six months: ‘I will watch how I behave, and not let my tongue lead me into sin’ (Ps. 39:1). On the other hand, he had a broader outlook than many of his colleagues in the desert and did not believe their way of life was necessarily the best; he settled an argument between to monks as to which was more perfect, becoming a monk or staying in the world and doing works of mercy, by saying: ‘Before God both are perfect. There are other roads to perfection besides being a monk.'” (18 July, Butler’s Lives of the Saints)
