The Love of Literature

"Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him. All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower." - John 1:3-5

"Do not I fill heaven and earth?" declares the LORD. - Jeremiah 23:24

We could say much more and still fall short; to put it concisely, "He is all." - Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 43:27


god is in all things. so he must be in the books that i love to read, regardless of whether they are canonical or secular. because he is in all things.
reading can become a form of communication between me and god. not necessary in a doctrinal sort of way, but nonetheless he is in the literature.


ive been reading King Lear lately. here are some of my favorite lines thus far:

If for I want that glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not - since what I well intend,
I'll do't before I speak
-cordelia

Love's not love
When it is mingled with regards that stand
Aloof from th'entire point.
-france

Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest,
Leave thy drink and thy whore
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more
Than two tens to a score.
-fool

She that's a maid now, and laughs at my departure,
Shall not be a maid long, unless things be cut shorter.
-fool

Poor Turlygod, poor Tom,
That's something yet: Edgar I nothing am.
-edgar

Our basest beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous;
Allow not nature more than nature needs,
Man's life is cheap as beast's.
-lear

O sir, to wilful men
The injuries that they themselves procure
Must be their schoolmasters.
-regan

When priests are more in word than matter,
When brewers mar their malt with water,
When nobles are their tailors' tutors,
No heretics burned but wenches' suitors;
When every case in law is right
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues,
Nor cut-purses come not to throngs,
When usurers tell their gold i' the field,
And bawds and whores do churches build,
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion:
Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
That going shall be used with feet.
This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time.
-fool

But where the greater malady is fixed,
The lesser is scarce felt...
...When the mind's free,
The body's delicate: this tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there...
-lear

Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
-lear

Keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets, thy pen from lenders' books, and defy the foul fiend.
-edgar

Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow'st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha? Here's three on's us are sophisticated; thou art the thing itself.
-lear

The prince of darkness is a gentleman.
-edgar