Sertillanges' The Intellectual Life
Michael Kroth • July 9, 2020
A Few Words of Wisdom (out of many) From Sertillanges' Masterpiece, "The Intellectual Life"
"You are consecrated by your vocation. Will what truth wills; consent for the sake of truth to bestir yourself, to take up your abode within its proper realm, to organize your life, and realizing your inexperience, to learn from the experience of others."
~A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, pp. 6-7
"How many experiences life offers us every day! We let them pass, but a deep thinker gathers them up and makes his treasure of them; they will gradually fill out the framework of his thought, and his general ideas will be first tested and then illustrated by living examples."
~A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, p. 64
"So acquire the habit of being present at this activity of the material and moral universe. Learn to look; compare what is before you with your familiar or secret ideas. Do not see in a town merely houses, but human life and history. Let a gallery or a museum show you something more than a collection of objects, let it show you schools of art and of life, conceptions of destiny and of nature....
~A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, p. 74
"Thus the wise man, at all times and on every road, keeps a mind ripe for acquisitions that ordinary folk neglect. The humblest occupation is for him a continuation of the loftiest; his formal calls are fortunate chances of investigation; his walks are voyages of discovery, what he hears and his silent answers are a dialogue that truth carries on with herself within him. Wherever he is, his inner universe is comparing itself with the other, his life with Life, his work with the incessant work of all beings; and as he comes forth from the narrow space in which his concentrated study is done, one gets the impression, not that he is leaving the true behind, but that he is throwing his door wide open so that the world may bring to him all the truth given out in its mighty activities." (Italics added)
~A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life, p. 81
Earth Day is this week. As we consider the state of our world - and the ecology of both our material and spiritual environment - it makes sense to ask what our role is, has been, and is supposed to be in relationship to "our common home" (Pope Francis).
Here are some initial thoughts about elegance, nature, and depth; a poem about happiness; and even a haiku.
It takes just a second to break something. Restoring what was broken takes time.
Outcomes are not certain, though some are much more highly predictable than others.
Life is messy. We know that. But some people move through that mess with a surprising kind of grace.
“The poor in spirit are by no means poor-spirited. They are persons who see so much to be, so much to do, such limitless reaches to life and goodness that they are profoundly conscious of their insufficiency and incompleteness.” ~Rufus Jones, The Inner Life , p. 19
