D Patrick Miller Quotes

I was no stranger to bar fights. You'd think they'd be rare in a place like the University, but liquor is the great leveler. After six or seven solid drinks, there is very little difference between a miller on the outs with his wife and a young alchemist who's done poorly on his exams. They're both equally eager to skin their knuckles on someone else's teeth.

Agapanthus and peonies in June. Scented stock and sweet peas in July. Sunflowers and sweet William in August. By the time September's oriental lilies and ornamental cabbages appeared, she wasn't hiding upstairs in the workroom anymore. She was spending more time in the shop, answering the phone, dealing with the customers. One Sunday she spent the afternoon at an allotment belonging to a friend of Ciara's, picking lamb's ear and dusty miller and veronica for a wedding, and didn't think about Michael once, but she kept remembering a Patrick Kavanagh poem she'd learned at school, the one about how every old man he saw reminded him of his father.

The true danger of all symbols, metaphors, and images (tangible, visible) is that they may reduce the irreducible reality that stands behind them all.

Divine gift and human act are parts of a whole.

If exodus was God’s redemptive activity to give sabbath to slaves, then sabbath now is human non-activity to remember the exodus redemption. In effect the commandment says, In breaking free from your labors, you will be reminded of God’s breaking you free from your hard toil and bondage

[T]he secret is that the ego is the devil — not the shadow... there is evil beyond the ego — an archetypal evil — but for most people, it's the ego that's really the problem.

In every multiple personality case, you can always clearly identify the shadow. It's not always evil — it's just different than the ego. Jung said the truth of the matter is that the shadow is ninety percent pure gold. Whatever has been repressed holds a tremendous amount of energy, with a great positive potential. So the shadow, no matter how troublesome it may be. is not intrinsically evil. The ego, in its refusal of insight and its refusal to accept the entire personality, contributes much more to evil than the shadow.

If you go back to that psychological document we call the New Testament, you'll find that it says the devil is 'the father of lies." Now the shadow never lies; it's the ego that lies about its real motives. That's why successful psychotherapy, and any genuine religious conversion, requires absolute honesty about oneself.

-Psalm 118:1, 5-6, 19, 21-22 All our life is sown with tiny thorns that produce in our hearts a thousand involuntary movements of hatred, envy, fear, impatience, a thousand little fleeting disappointments, a thousand slight worries, a thousand disturbances that momentarily alter our peace of soul. For example, a word escapes that should not have been spoken. Or someone says something that offends us. A child inconveniences you. A bore stops you. You don't like the weather. Your work is not going according to plan. A piece of furniture is broken. A dress is torn. I know that these are not occasions for practicing very heroic virtue. But they would definitely be enough to acquire it if we really wished to.3 When I am able to thank the Lord for an inconvenience, I believe he chips away at my mountainous need to be in control. "Thanksgiving," says Patrick D. Miller Jr., "whether to other persons or God, is an inherent reminder that we are not autonomous or self-sufficient ... Praise to God does that in a fundamental way as it directs our love away from self and all human sufficiency."4 In my case it will take a lot more thanks and a lot more chipping away of my self-sufficiency before an adjective like "heroic" could even remotely apply to me. A Thanksgiving Sacrifice Mary Lou and I attend our parish's contemporary Mass at 6 p.m. on Sundays, and I pray often at daily Mass. The heart of the Mass is a celebration of the Eucharist, a representation of Christ's once-for-all sacrifice that rescued us from sin and united us to God. The word "eucharist" derives from a Greek root that means "thanksgiving." At Mass I enjoy the privilege of participating in Christ's eternal sacrifice, offering myself with him in thanksgiving to the Father. I am expressing my gratitude for his giving me a share in his divine life through the death and resurrection of