Word: god
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...faith in a loving Creator, it is the fundamental challenge to divine credibility: centuries of Christian theological cerebration have led to no more satisfying conclusion than that evil truly exists and that in some unknown way it will be conquered and made to serve the hidden purposes of God. For believer and unbeliever alike, Dostoevsky's riddle-"What am I doing on this earth where sorrow reigns?"-can only be solved provisionally or not at all. The collective historical experience of America is such that it has not really contemplated the question, much less tried to answer it; since...
...always seemed puzzling how the essentially pessimistic theology of Puritanism could become the underpinning of a buoyant, almost recklessly optimistic civilization. Part of the answer lies in the fact that the Puritan ethos not only posits the fall of man, it also implies the existence of an Elect of God. America has presumed itself to be God's chosen remnant, to the point where it very nearly subscribes to the anthropocentric heresy of Pelagius, the 5th century Christian ascetic who argued that man could gain salvation without divine grace by his efforts alone. Put in secular terms, the Pelagianism...
...profoundly spiritual appreciation of the value of life. One of his most powerful compositions is the Slavonic Mass-a soaring, jagged work for chorus, orchestra and soloists that has sometimes been used in Czech Catholic liturgical ceremonies. The Mass was a salute to nature, not God, and as usual Janáček's critics missed the point. After its premiere, one wrote sardonically that "the old man" was apparently turning to belief in God. Janáček answered with a bristling postcard: "No old man, no believer. Not till I see for myself...
...phenomenon of color intensification under LSD is well known, and Painter Heinz Trökes experienced it intensely. "Whenever I frame the color white," he said, "the color starts to burn. My God, this white becomes the whitest white of my life. Now a bird ap pears in its midst. But then it begins to look like a volcano, ejecting bright colors." Perhaps significantly, the abstractionists in the experiment showed far more resistance to mind expansion. Action Painter K. H. Sonderborg displayed few discernible effects, though he reported seeing thousands of strange little animal figures that he found impossible...
...play we were allowed to spend so much time in exercises and experimentation. This was one reason why I chose Chekhov and not a loosely constructed modern play which, though it might be more "relevant," would allow us too much freedom to rewrite and re-create. Chekhov is like God to us: nothing can be changed without the most careful examination of why he wrote it-and when we find out why, we realize its need to be retained...