
“Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.”
Source: Lettres De Westerbork
As quoted in O<sub>2</sub> : Breathing New Life Into Faith (2008) by Richard Dahlstrom, p. 223; this source is disputed as it does not cite an original document for the quote.
Disputed
Context: Isn't it bewildering … that everything is so beautiful, despite all the horrors that exist? Lately I've noticed something grand and mysterious peering into my sheer joy in all that is lovely — the sense of a Creator whom innocent creation worships with its beauty. Only man can be hateful or ugly, because he possesses a free will to cut himself off from the chorus of praise. It often seems that he will succeed in drowning out this chorus with his cannon thunder, curses, and blasphemy. But it has become clear to me this spring that he cannot. And so I must try to throw myself on the side of the victor.
“Despite everything, life is full of beauty and meaning.”
Source: Lettres De Westerbork
Letter to Robert Grant (19 November 1907)
“How terrible this darkness was, how bewildering, and yet mysteriously beautiful!”
Source: The Burning Secret and other stories
“It isn't a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that's beautiful.”
Source: At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ifi5KkXig3s "Biblical Series IV: Adam and Eve: Self-Consciousness, Evil, and Death"
Source: Bishop-elect Edmund J. Whalen Fluently Reaches the Faithful https://cny.org/stories/bishop-elect-edmund-j-whalen-fluently-reaches-the-faithful,20259 (December 4, 2019)
“We grow despite the
horror that we feed
upon our own
tomorrow.
We grow.”
"Glory Falls"
I Shall Not Be Moved (1990)