Sons and Daughters of the Earth, steep yourself in the sea of matter, bathe in its fiery waters, for it is the source of your life and your youthfulness.
You thought you could do without it because the power of thought has been kindled in you? You hoped that the more thoroughly you rejected the tangible, the closer you would be to spirit: that you would be more divine if you lived in the world of pure thought, or at least more angelic if you fled the corporeal? Well, you were like to have perished of hunger.
You must have oil for your limbs, blood for your veins, water for your soul, the world of reality for your intellect: do you not see that the very law of your own nature makes these a necessity for you?
~Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, from Earth Prayers from Around the World, edited by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
3 comments:
And I thought that I was familiar with Teilard de Chardin-WOW!! thank you for this.
What a wonderfully powerful quote! And I love the photo. Thank you for sharing.
Perhaps there are those who would contend what de Chardin counters; I seriously doubt anyone is saying that the spirit can go without food.
Beware, again the simplifiers...
Especially those who want to equate the size of people's bank accounts, number of toys, etc. as indicators of individual value. That without such "material things" is is one's value is fallen.
Those who are content with less, or perhaps, necessarily have to be because the world is an unfair place and becoming more so, are merely saying that castigating those who refuse to participate in the crawling over others' heads rat race is rather redonkulous, and perhaps those who want to process the value of others through the simplicity of examining externals should rethink the value of doing so.
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