“The essence of life is not in the great victories and grand failures, but in the simple joys.” – Jonathan Lockwood Huie, Author
“Joy is the kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.” – David Steindl-Rast (born 1926) Catholic theologian
Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B.
Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B., (born July 12, 1926) is an American Catholic Benedictine monk, author, and lecturer. He is committed to interfaith dialogue and has dealt with the interaction between spirituality and science.
As a Benedictine monk, he spent time in various monastic communities, including 14 years at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California. He spent half the year as a hermit in a monastery and spent the other half lecturing and giving workshops and retreats. His experience around the world and with the world’s various religions convinced him that the human response of gratitude is a part of the religious worldview and is essential to all human life.
The religions start from mysticism. There is no other way to start a religion. But, I compare this to a volcano that gushes forth …and then …the magma flows down the sides of the mountain and cools off. And when it reaches the bottom, it’s just rocks. You’d never guess that there was fire in it. So after a couple of hundred years, or two thousand years or more, what was once alive is dead rock. Doctrine becomes doctrinaire. Morals become moralistic. Ritual becomes ritualistic. What do we do with it? We have to push through this crust and go to the fire that’s within it.
