easy living

 

p64

 

"Ooh unlucky devil, " she shouted, "don't you know that God is found not

in monastaries but in the homes of men! Wherever you find husband and wife, that's where you find God; wherever children and petty cares and cooking and arguments and reconciliations, thats where God is too. Don't listen to thos eunuchs. Sour grapes! Sour Grapes! The God I'm telling you aout, the domestic one, not the monastic: that's the true God. He's the one you should adore. Leave the other those lazy, sterile idiots in the desert."

 

p 73

 

But the woman's face gleamed and flickered; the flames licked her eyebrows, lips, chin and uncovered throat. She took a handful of laurel leaves, threw them in the fire, and sighed.

"Then you took me by the hand-yes, you took me by the hand, Jesus-and we went inside and lay down on the pebbles of the yard. We glued the soles of our feet together, felt the warmth of our bodies mix, rise from our feet to our thighs, from our thighs to our loins. Then we closed our eyes and- "

"Quiet" the youth shouted again. He lifted his hand in order to cover her mouth, but restrained himself-he was afraid to touch her lips.

The woman sighed now and continued, lowering her voice to a murmur. "Never in my whole life have I felt such sweetness."

She paused, and then "It is that sweetness, Jesus, which I've been seeking ever since from man to man; but I have not found it."

 

p 94

 

"First came the wings, and then the angel."

 

The monk put a hand to his heart. "You said, 'First came the wings and then the angel.' We never noticed those words in Scripture, Holy Abbot."

"How could you have noticed them, Father Habakkuk? Alas! Your minds are still dim. You open the prophets and your eyes are able to see nothing but the letters, but what can letters say? They are the black bars of the prison where the spirit strangles itself with screaming. Between the letters and the lines, and all around the blank margins, the spirit circulates freely, and I circulate with it and bring you this great message: Friars, first came the wings and then the angel!"