Billy Kangas

“Milton’s treatment of Satan reminds us of the rabbis’ description of the “evil inclination” that is inextricably combined with human progress and productivity. Satan embodies many of the achievements of early modernity. When he embarks on his dangerous journey through Chaos, he becomes an intrepid early modern explorer, courageously seeking a New World; in his plan to invade Eden, he becomes a European coloniser; and, of course, he shares Milton’s passion for republican liberty when he inveighs against the monarchical elevation of the Son. Looking back on his moment of rebellion, he declares that he “sdeind [i.e., disdained] subjection”: “Will ye submit your necks, and chuse to bend / The supple knee?” he asks his fellow angels: Who can in reason then or right assume Monarchie over such as live by right His equals, if in power and splendor less, In freedom equal?70 Like the rabbis, Milton implied that evil was not an alien, omnipotent force; it was rather intricately combined with the creativity and inventiveness that were essential to human nature and its achievements.”
― Karen Armstrong, The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts

“Mary remembered with a mournful smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie—whose presence gave her no pleasure—was here and they met every week.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.”
― Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

“one’s nationality should come to have a meaning in the light of eternity.”
― Thomas Merton, Year with Thomas Merton, A: Daily Meditations from His Journals - A Spiritual Guide for Reflection, Gratitude, and Self-Care in the Pursuit of a Mindful Christian Life