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Nicole’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Nicole’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Nicole Roccas’s Followers (84)
1,371 books
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86 friends
1,362 books
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71 friends
1,889 books
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196 friends
2,214 books
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25 friends
1,425 books
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58 friends
2,847 books
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3,723 friends
215 books
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4 friends
5,040 books
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751 friends
More friends…
Nicole Roccas
Goodreads Author
Twitter
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Member Since
December 2015
* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.
A Free Template to Streamline Online Book Reviews
It happens to me all the time. I read an amazing book, one that fills me with all these rich experiences and thoughts that I want to tell the world about it. But when I head over to Amazon or Goodreads to write a review, I’m like a deer in headlights. My mind goes blank, and suddenly I’m back in first grade trying to write a book report for English class.
“Me like book,” is all that
Nicole’s Recent Updates
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| My favourite was the titular story, Open Secrets. I read it twice; knowing the ending helped me see other details in a new light upon rereading. | |
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“For whatever reason, we humans can only understand or encounter holiness in small morsels at a time—in a Chalice, a piece of bread, a sip of wine. Any encounter with the sacred reminds us that it is enough to start somewhere, anywhere—it is enough to put one foot forward, to turn to Christ for one real moment. Wherever we begin, Real Life will seep out into other areas of our existence. Lately I have been thinking a lot about this and the implications it has for spiritual endeavors. Sacredness is not unilateral, as we perhaps assume. It is the token of relationship—between God and man, temporal and eternal, cosmic and earthly. It is, therefore, a two-way street or a stream with two sources. On the one hand is Christ, who makes objects holy by imbuing them with His presence. On the other hand is humanity—we must also participate in sanctifying things for them to become holy. In biblical understandings, the main way we do so is to set those things—times, objects, activities, or thoughts—apart from other things. The Holy Chalice, for example, is sacred not only because it has housed the presence of the Lord, but because we continue to devote it and offer it to God for that purpose. By setting the Chalice apart, we are saying to God that this great gift of the Eucharist is special to us. Over time, the Chalice comes to represent not only the Eucharist itself, but also our ongoing synergy or cooperation with Christ, our continual and appreciative “Yes” to His presence.”
― Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life
― Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life
“In His rest, He refashioned or re-created creation in the shape of the Resurrection. Bearing this in mind, we could endeavor to infuse (at least some of) our own rest time with redemptive, re-creational elements. At the very least, we should remember that the purpose of rest is to reenliven ourselves—to fill and be filled with new life. I don’t know about you, but “vegging out”— relaxing as it is—does not leave me feeling more alive afterward. In fact, I usually feel more disengaged and apathetic than before. On the other hand, other activities, such as knitting or repotting my houseplants, leave me with a renewed sense of vitality, even if they require more mental and physical energy than binge-watching the latest period drama.”
― Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life
― Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life
“Despondency is the impossibility to see anything good or positive; it is the reduction of everything to negativism and pessimism. [. . .] Despondency is the suicide of the soul because when man is possessed by it, he is absolutely unable to see the light and desire it.”
― Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life
― Time and Despondency: Regaining the Present in Faith and Life
“We often conceive of worldly life as merely a kind of default existence that anyone who is not specially called to monasticism or ordination simply ends up leading. We assume that it is only the monk, nun or priest who has a special call, while the married woman, for instance, has merely been passed by. [...] But we must not allow ourselves to approach it merely in these terms. Instead, every one of us should, indeed must, treat lay life as a calling just the way we think of monasticism and ordination. We must sit down with ourselves and with God in prayer to discern if life in the world really is what we are meant for, and if we discover that it is, we must reat this call with the same seriousness with which we would treat a call to a hermit's life in the desert. We are not lay people simply because we happen not to be monks or priests. We are lay people because God wills that we lead a life weeking our salvation through the world.”
― A Layman in the Desert: Monastic Wisdom for a Life in the World
― A Layman in the Desert: Monastic Wisdom for a Life in the World
“Although watching TV is far from being a positive experience—generally people report feeling passive, weak, rather irritable, and sad when doing it—at least the flickering screen brings a certain amount of order to consciousness. The predictable plots, familiar characters, and even the redundant commercials provide a reassuring pattern of stimulation. The screen invites attention to itself as a manageable, restricted aspect of the environment. While interacting with television, the mind is protected from personal worries. The information passing across the screen keeps unpleasant concerns out of the mind.”
― Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
― Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
“Tradition is not only a protective, conservative principle; it is, primarily, the principle of growth and regeneration… Tradition is the constant abiding of the Spirit and not only the memory of words.”
― The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity
― The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity
“Alzheimer's is not about the past - the successes, the accolades, the accomplishments. They offer only context and are worthless on places like Pluto. Alzheimer's is about the present and the struggle, the scrappy brawl, the fight to live with a disease. It's being in the present, the relationships, the experiences, which is the core of life, the courage to live in the soul.”
― On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer's
― On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer's
