Desert Quotes - page 15
Utu, I greet you! Let me be ill no longer! Hero, 's son, I greet you! Let me be ill no longer! Utu, you have let me come up into the mountains in the company of my brothers. In the mountain cave, the most dreadful spot on earth, let me be ill no longer! Here where there is no mother, there is no father, there is no acquaintance, no one whom I value, my mother is not here to say "Alas, my child!" My brother is not here to say "Alas, my brother!" ... Don't make me flow away like water in a violent death! Don't make me eat saltpetre as if it were barley! Don't make me fall like a throw-stick somewhere in the desert unknown to me! Afflicted with a name which excites my brothers' scorn, let me be ill no longer! Afflicted with the derision of my comrades, let me be ill no longer! Let me not come to an end in the mountains like a weakling!
Lugalbanda
I would write, edit, rewrite and re-edit the text. However, I still felt that I was miles away from the ideal version of the story born and still alive in me. I ran towards it with all my might and when I thought I had finally captured it, it would slip away from me and disappear. It looked more like an everlasting vision of an oasis in the mind of the thirsty pilgrim wandering in the desert. Finally, I realised I would never be able to record it in a way that makes myself completely happy with it. I had felt this earlier, but did not want to acknowledge the feeling, I did not want to feel defeated. Now I know - unless the writer suffers, goes through difficulties and finally, feels beaten, like me; if he writes the way he himself wants to write, if he wins over the story, he is dead and finished, as a writer... So, in a nutshell, the writer faces the possibility to die after finishing each of his/her works. However, it is better not to use that possibility until the end...
Miho Mosulishvili
No prophet ever encountered God without withdrawing into solitude and silence. Moses, Elijah, and John the Baptist encountered God in the great silence of the desert. Today, too, monks seek God in solitude and silence. I am speaking, not just about geographical solitude or movement, but about an interior state. It is not enough to be quiet, either. It is necessary to become silence. For, even before the desert, the solitude and the silence, God is already in man. The true desert is within us, in our soul. Strengthened with this knowledge, we can understand how silence is indispensable if we are to find God. The Father waits for his children in their own hearts.
Robert Sarah