Addiction is not something we can simply take care of by applying the proper remedy. For it is in the very nature of addiction to feed on our attempts to master it.
Interpretation
Addiction cannot be easily conquered; it thrives on our efforts to control it.
Gerald May highlights the complexity of addiction, suggesting that it is not just a matter of finding the right solution or remedy. Instead, attempts to control addiction often exacerbate the issue, as the nature of addiction feeds on the struggle to overcome it. This insight points to the necessity of understanding addiction as a deeply ingrained challenge that may require a different approach than straightforward attempts at mastery.
In practice
During a public health seminar discussing addiction treatment strategies.
Honesty before God requires the most fundamental risk of faith we can take: the risk that God is good, that God does love us unconditionally. It is in taking this risk that we rediscover our dignity. To bring the truth of ourselves, just as we are, to God, just as God is, is the most dignified thing we can do in this life.
Every good man progressively becomes God. To become God, to be man, and to educate oneself, are expressions that are synonymous.
If Heaven and Earth are unable to persist, how could man?
A church that doesn't provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn't unsettle, a word of God that doesn't get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn't touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — what gospel is that?
I asked long ago,'What must I do to be saved?' The Scripture answered, 'Keep the commandments, believe, hope, love.' I was early warned against laying, as the Papists do, too much stress on outward works, or on a faith without works, which as it does not include, so it will never lead to true hope or charity.
Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse
They do not need the sun. Who needs the sun when the eyes glow? Darkness. A woolen fog has wrapped the earth, has dropped a heavy curtain. From far away, from beyond the curtain, comes the sound of drops falling on stone. Far, far away - the autumn, people, tomorrow. ("The North")
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