Elevensies?

It seems like I finally found a place to get my Elevensies. Lets hope they're covered under "And Many more"...

On abilities

Business inspiration from an unexpected source:

Executive ability is prominent in your make up.

A genius of a name for make up for the professional woman - found in a fortune cookie. If only I had the capital to start such a company...

The exhaustion of faith

'My elder! Tell me sincerely, I bet of you in the name of God, tell me what you think of this: why did the evil spirits appear before the eyes of people in ancient times, as the sacred tradition tells us, and why do they no longer present themselves before our own eyes?'
Father Arseny glanced at me attentively and keenly. In his eyes, as I recall, the flame of a certain joyous faith was suddenly kindled, and after pondering for a while, he answered me thus:
'In those days all men, even the pagans, had a great deal of faith. Now men have become powerless, and faith is weakening. The earth itself is growing old, and men are growing senile in both spirit and flesh. With the exhaustion of men's strength, faith has also become exhausted. Now it is more profitable for the spirits of temptation not to be seen by us. They say to themselves, 'Things are well as they are!' Should a man of weak faith of a godless man see a demon before him and understand this, he would as a consequence begin to have a firmer faith in goodness.'
Konstantin Leontiev

A hundred horse, of course...

If an American is automobiling alone, he, the model of chastity and virtue, will slow down and stop in front of every lone, pretty female pedestrian, bare his teeth in a smile, and lure her into the auto with a wild rolling of his eyes. A lady who fails to understand his situation will qualify as a fool who does not comprehend her own good fortune—the opportunity to make the acquaintance of the owner of a hundred-horse-power automobile.
Vladimir Mayakovsky

Excellent intentions...

Unfortunately, but very significantly, the task of criticism today has been virtually identified with that of apology; the role of the critic is generally seen to be no more than that of explaining, for the uninstructed multitudes, the latest 'inspiration' of the 'creative genius.' Thus passive 'receptivity' takes the place of active intelligence, and ‘success' – the success of the 'genius' in expressing his intention, no matter what the nature of that intention – replaces excellence.
Eugene (Fr. Seraphim) Rose

The good of the ascetic

For it is not fasts and other bodily exercises, not tears and good works that are the goods of an ascetic, but a personality restored in its integrity, a personality that has regained its chastity. “Nothing,” says St. Methodius, “is evil by nature. Things become evil by the mode of their use.”
St. Pavel Florensky

The simplicity of belief

If thou believest, suffer all things; if thou dost not suffer, thou dost not believe.
St. John Chrysostom

The responsibility of the artist

During the last one hundred years one has somehow arrived at the false conclusion that an artist can manage without the spiritual; the act of creating has suddenly become something instinctive! The consequence of this is that the artist's talent, or gift, does not necessarily put him in a position of responsibility. This is why we have arrived at this lack the spiritual element which characterizes contemporary art to such a large degree.
Andrei Tarkovsky

Relinquishing the booty

The human body, even though it is plain mud
Because of the soul, by God, to us, it is given.
If, with sin, the body we defile,
Of our soul, we are breaking the wings,
From the Living God, we are separating it,
And to the unclean one, we give it as a booty.
St. Nikolaj Velimirovic

Seeking salvation

But if you were to see how proud is that mighty spirit which created this colossal embellishment and how proudly convinced this spirit is of its victory and its triumph, then you would shudder for those over whom this proud spirit hovers and rules. In the presence of such enormity, in the presence of such gigantic pride in the sovereign spirit, in the presence of the triumphant finality of that spirit's creations, even the hungry soul often comes to a standstill, grows humble, bows down, seeks salvation in gin and depravity, and begins to believe that everything is as it should be.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Monarchical socialism?

I shall even say more: if socialism—not as a nihilistic revolt and delirium of self-negation, but rather as a lawful organization of labor and capital, as a new kind of corporate, coervice serf-state imposed upon human societies—has any future at all, then nothing but a monarchical government will be able to create this new order...
Konstantin Leontiev

The consolation of progress

Yes, sir, now we have been completely consoled; we have consoled ourselves. So what if not everything around us now is still not very beautiful; we ourselves are so wonderful, so civilized, so European that even the people are ready to vomit from looking at us. The people now regard us as complete foreigners; they do not understand a single word, a single book, a single thought of ours—but, as you wish, that is progress. ...the soul is a tabula rasa, a piece of wax from which the real man can be immediately molded, the general, universal man, the homunculus—you need only apply the fruits of European civilization and read two or three books. ...And all this is progress, as you wish!
Fyodor Dostoevsky

The end of reason

Western man, having through the exclusive development of his abstract reason lost faith in all convictions not derived from it, has now owing to that same development, lost his last faith-faith in the omnipotence of that reason.
Ivan Kireevskii

The truthful historian

St. Gregory [of Tours] is an historian; but this does not mean a mere chronicler of bare facts, or the mythical 'objective observer' of so much modern scholarship who looks a things with the 'cold scrutiny' of the 'remote observer.' He had a point of view; he was always seeking a pattern in history; he had constantly before him what the modern scientist would call a 'model' into which he fitted the historical facts which he collected. In actual fact, all scientists and scholars act in this way, and any one who denies it only deceives himself and admits in effect that his 'model' of reality, his basis for interpreting facts, is unconscious, and therefore is much more capable of distorting reality than is the 'model' of a scholar who knows what his own basic beliefs and presuppositions are.
Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

The Popes of yore

What will you say to Christ, Who is the Head of the universal Church, in the scrutiny of the last judgment, having attempted to put all His members under yourself by the appellation of Universal,... Certainly Peter, the first of the Apostles, himself a member of the universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John, - what were they but heads of particular communities. ... And of all the saints, not one has asked himself to be called universal. ... The prelates of this Apostolic See, which by the Providence of God I serve, had the honor offered them of being called universal ... But not yet one of them has ever wished to be called by such a title, or seized upon this ill-advised name, lest if, in virtue of the rank of the pontificate he should take to himself the glory of singularity, he might seem to have denied it to all his brethren.
St. Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome

The glue that is art

For if the sun does not strike us with wonder, from its being customary, much more do works of art fail, and we only look at them like things of clay. … He instituted arts, that our present state of existence might be held together by them, not that we should separate ourselves from spiritual things, not that we should devote ourselves to the base arts but to the necessary ones, that we might minister to one another's good, and not that we should plot one against another.
St. John Chrysostom

The law of action

Either we are rational spirit obliged for ever to obey the absolute values of the Tao, or else we are mere nature to be kneaded and cut into new shapes for the pleasures of masters who must, by hypothesis, have to motive but their own ‘natural’ impulses. Only the Tao provides a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike. A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.
C.S. Lewis

Per the Colonels request

'Don’t you read or get read to?' [Mr. George]
The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. 'No, no. We have never been readers in our family. It don’t pay. Stuff. Idleness. Folly. No, no!' [Grandfather Smallweed]
Bleak House

Worthy to be a duchess...or queen as it were

'My dear,' he returned, 'when a young lady is as mild as she’s game, and as game as she’s mild, that’s all I ask, and more than I expect. She then becomes a Queen, and that’s about what you are yourself.'
Mr. Bucket to Esther. Bleak House.

Of Soils

As He sowed, that is, as He taught, some seed fell along the road. He did not say that the sower threw the seed along the road, but instead that some fell there. Christ the Sower sows and teaches, and His word falls upon his listeners everywhere, and it is they who show themselves to be like a road, or a rock, or thorns, or good soil. When the disciples ask about the parable, the Lord says, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, that is, unto you who desire to learn, for everyone that asketh, receiveth. [Mt. 7:8] To the others who are not worthy of the mysteries, He speaks obscurely. They think that they see, but they do not; they hear, but they do not understand. And this is to their benefit. The Lord hides these things from them so that they will not fall under greater condemnation for understanding the mysteries and then disregarding them. He who understands, and then disregards, deserves a more severe punishment.
Blessed Theophylact

Powerpoint Moses?

Climate activists, following in the tradition of prophets depicted in the Bible, have carried out a daring night time 'art attack' in the name of combating climate change.

I have no claim to a great biblical knowledge but I don't ever remember there having been a video projector mentioned...

Integrity of the saints

For it is not fasts and other bodily exercises, not tears and good works that are the goods of an ascetic, but a personality restored in its integrity, a personality that has regained its chastity.
St. Pavel Florensky

Let the bells peal

Act of Canonical Communion

We, the humble Alexy II, by God’s mercy Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, jointly with the Eminent Members of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, having gathered at a meeting of the Holy Synod (date) in the God-preserved city of Moscow; and the humble Laurus, Metropolitan of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, jointly with the Eminent Bishops, members of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, having gathered (time, place);

Being guided by the effort towards reestablishing blessed peace, Divinely-decreed love, and brotherly unity in the common work in the harvest-fields of God within the Fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church and her faithful in the Fatherland and abroad, taking into consideration the ecclesiastical life of the Russian diaspora outside the canonical borders of the Moscow Patriarchate, as dictated by history;

Taking into account that the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia performs its service on the territories of many nations;

By this Act declare:

1. That the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, conducting its salvific service in the dioceses, parishes, monasteries, brotherhoods, and other ecclesiastical bodies that were formed through history, remains an indissoluble part of the Local Russian Orthodox Church.

2. That the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is independent in pastoral, educational, administrative, management, property, and civil matters, existing at the same time in canonical unity with the Fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church.

3. The supreme ecclesiastical, legislative, administrative, judicial and controlling authority in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is her Council of Bishops, convened by her Primate (First Hierarch), in accordance with the Regulations [Polozheniye] of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

4. The First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia is elected by her Council of Bishops. This election is confirmed, in accordance with the norms of Canon Law, by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.

5. The name of the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church and the name of the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are commemorated during divine services in all churches of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia before the name of the ruling bishop in the prescribed order.

6. Decisions on the establishment or liquidation of dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are made by her Council of Bishops in agreement with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.

7. The bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are elected by her Council of Bishops or, in cases foreseen by the Regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, by the Synod of Bishops. Such elections are confirmed in accordance with canonical norms by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church.

8. The bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are members of the Local Council [Pomestny Sobor] and Council of Bishops [Arkhiereiskij Sobor] of the Russian Orthodox Church and also participate in the meetings of the Holy Synod in the prescribed order. Representatives of the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia participate in the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in the established manner.

9. The supreme instances of ecclesiastical authority for the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are the Local Council and the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church.

10. Decisions of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church extend to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia with consideration of the particularities described by the present Act, by the Regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and by the legislation of the nations in which she performs her ministry.

11. Appeals on decisions of the supreme ecclesiastical court of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia are directed to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

12. Amendments to the Regulations of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia by her supreme legislative authority are subject to the confirmation of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in such case as these changes bear a canonical character.

13. The Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia receives her holy myrrh from the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

By this Act, canonical communion within the Local Russian Orthodox Church is hereby restored.

Acts issued previously which preclude the fullness of canonical communion are hereby deemed invalid or obsolete.

The reestablishment of canonical communion will serve, God willing, towards the strengthening of the unity of the Church of Christ, of her witness in the contemporary world, promoting the fulfillment of the will of the Lord to “gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad” (John 11:52).

Let us bring thanks to All-Merciful God, Who through His omnipotent hand directed us to the path of healing the wounds of division and led us to the desired unity of the Russian Church in the homeland and abroad, to the glory of His Holy Name and to the good of His Holy Church and Her faithful flock. Through the prayers of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, may the Lord grant His blessing to the One Russian Church and Her flock both in the fatherland and in the diaspora.