Nor does God whisper through the trees. His voice is not to be mistaken. When men hear it they fall to their knees and their souls are riven and they cry out to Him and there is no fear but only wildness of heart that springs from such longing.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the presence of divine influence is profound and unmistakable, evoking deep emotions in humans.
Cormac McCarthy's quote speaks to the idea that divine communication is a powerful force that should not be misinterpreted. When individuals truly experience this connection, it leads to an overwhelming feeling of reverence and emotional release, transforming fear into a passionate yearning for spiritual connection.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the nature of divine presence, this quote can be used to evoke the emotional response of a congregation.
Yet it is the narrative that is the life of the dream while the events themselves are often interchangeable. The events of the waking world on the other hand are forced upon us and the narrative is the unguessed axis along which they must be strung.
See the hand that nursed the serpent. The fine hasped pipes of her fingerbones. The skin bewenned and speckled. The veins are milkblue and bulby. A thin gold ring set with diamonds. That raised the once child's heart of her to agonies of passion before I was. Here is the anguish of mortality. Hopes wrecked, love sundered. See the mother sorrowing. How everything that I was warned of's come to pass.
What he could bear in the waking world he could not by night and he sat awake for fear the dream would return.
The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation.
Only now is the child finally divested of all that he has been. His origins are become remote as is his destiny and not again in all the world's turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man's will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.
He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke.
Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins?
For the Divine to function through you, it is important to make every breath, every pulsation in the body, and your very existence an offering.
Nobody knows what the cause is, though some pretend they do; it like some hidden assassin waiting to strike at you. Childless women get it, and men when they retire; it as if there had to be some outlet for their foiled creative fire.
I have neither permitted, nor shall I permit, the things which have been settled by the holy fathers to be violated by any innovation.
Dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink.
The profoundest affinities are those most readily felt.
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