Faith is not a refuge from reality. It is a demand that we face reality ... The true subject matter of religion is not our own little souls, but the Eternal God and His whole mysterious purpose, and our solemn responsibility to Him.
Interpretation
Faith encourages us to confront reality rather than escape from it, emphasizing our responsibility towards a greater purpose.
Evelyn Underhill's quote highlights that faith should not be seen as a means of avoiding the challenges of reality; instead, it calls for a courageous engagement with those challenges. She emphasizes that the core of religious belief is not merely individual spirituality, but an overarching connection to the divine and the responsibilities that come with it, urging us to think beyond ourselves and consider the larger, mysterious purpose of existence.
In practice
In a discussion about confronting challenges in life, this quote can serve as a reminder to not shy away from reality.
Nothing in all nature is so lovely and so vigorous, so perfectly at home in its environment, as a fish in the sea. Its surroundings give to it a beauty, quality, and power which are not its own. We take it out, and at once a poor, limp dull thing, fit for nothing, is gasping away its life. So the soul, sunk in God, living the life of prayer, is supported, filled, transformed in beauty, by a vitality and a power which are not its own.
As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet alone—though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than other men—so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may participate in it, unite with it, according to their measure and to the strength and purity of their desire.
God is always coming to you in the Sacrament of the Present Moment. Meet and receive Him there with gratitude in that sacrament.
Spiritual reading is a regular, essential part of the life of prayer, and particularly is it the support of adoring prayer.
As the genuine religious impulse becomes dominant, adoration more and more takes charge. 'I come to seek God because I need Him', may be an adequate formula for prayer. 'I come to adore His splendour, and fling myself and all that I have at His feet', is the only possible formula for worship.
I have an idea heaven will be both absolutely happy and absolutely dark, to protect us from the blaze of God.
Once you start to look at the gospels one by one, you realize that followers of Jesus were trying to understand what had happened after he was arrested and killed. They knew Judas had handed him over to the people who arrested him.
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
What does it mean, exactly, for a given system to be a 'neural correlate of consciousness'?
Utopias have their value -- nothing so wonderfully expands the imaginative horizons of human potentialities -- but as guides to conduct they can prove literally fatal.
At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.
A long war almost always places nations in this sad alternative: that their defeat delivers them to destruction and their triumph to despotism.
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