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.
Interpretation
The spiritual life challenges us to confront life's difficulties rather than escape them.
Evelyn Underhill's quote emphasizes that embracing a spiritual life is not about seeking comfort from life's struggles, but rather about fully engaging with those challenges. It suggests that true spirituality is about applying one's inherent goodness and love in the face of adversity, thereby acknowledging both the hardships of existence and the responsibilities that come with compassion and charity.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a motivational speech about embracing life's challenges.
Nothing in all nature is so lovely and so vigorous, so perfectly at home in its environment, as a fish in the sea. Its surroundings give to it a beauty, quality, and power which are not its own. We take it out, and at once a poor, limp dull thing, fit for nothing, is gasping away its life. So the soul, sunk in God, living the life of prayer, is supported, filled, transformed in beauty, by a vitality and a power which are not its own.
As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet alone—though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than other men—so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may participate in it, unite with it, according to their measure and to the strength and purity of their desire.
God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament.
Spiritual reading is a regular, essential part of the life of prayer, and particularly is it the support of adoring prayer.
As the genuine religious impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. 'I come to seek God because I need Him', may be an adequate formula for prayer. 'I come to adore His splendour, and fling myself and all that I have at His feet', is the only possible formula for worship.
I have an idea heaven will be both absolutely happy and absolutely dark, to protect us from the blaze of God.
That's one of those meaningless and unanswerable questions the mind keeps returning to endlessly, like the tongue exploring a broken tooth.
In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops.
An hour's history of two minds is well told in a game of chess.
When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
The issue is privacy. Why is the decision by a woman to sleep with a man she has just met in a bar a private one, and the decision to sleep with the same man for $100 subject to criminal penalties?
Sinners cannot obey the gospel, any more than the law, without renewal of heart.
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