burial of the dead

Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?

Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.

Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.

Book of Common Prayer

… absolute to itself

Who can precisely say that my neighbour suffers more than I do, or that Jesus suffered more than all of us? … Each person remains with his own suffering, which he thinks absolute and limitless… Each subjective existence is absolute to itself. For this reason each man lives as if he were the centre of the universe or of history.

On the Heights of Despair

is “christianity” an abstraction?

But Christendom has abolished Christ; yet, on the other hand, it wants—to inherit him, his great name, to make use of the enormous consequences of his life. Indeed, Christendom is not far from wanting to appropriate them as its own merits and to delude us into thinking that Christendom is Christ.

SK (Institutions)

Is “christianity” an abstraction that, when used against the individual, is dehumanizing? When Nietzsche writes again Christianity, maybe he is right?

So, do I believe in Christianity or in Jesus?

absolute nothingness

Although I feel that my tragedy is the greatest in history, greater than the fall of empires, I am aware of my total insignificance. I am totally convinced that I count for nothing in this universe, yet I feel that mine is the only real existence. If forced to choose between the world and myself, I would reject the world, its light and laws, unafraid to glide alone in absolute nothingness. Although my life is a torture, I cannot renounce it because I do not believe in any absolute values for which I could sacrifice myself’

On the Heights of Despair,, Cioran

what if??

Let us not be ungrateful to it, although it must certainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome, and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist error–namely, Plato’s invention of Pure Spirit and the Good in Itself. But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthier–sleep, we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength which the struggle against this error has fostered. It amounted to the very inversion of truth, and the denial of the PERSPECTIVE–the fundamental condition–of life, to speak of Spirit and the Good as Plato spoke of them; indeed one might ask, as a physician: “How did such a malady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of youths, and deserved his hemlock?” But the struggle against Plato, or–to speak plainer, and for the “people”–the struggle against the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR CHRISTIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THE “PEOPLE”), produced in Europe a magnificent tension of soul, such as had not existed anywhere previously; with such a tensely strained bow one can now aim at the furthest goals.

Beyond Good and Evil