I’ve logged more experience than most with simplicity and the complexity you discover inside simplicity, minimalism and asocial behavior, endurance and landscape.
Here is the truth: I think some deep wisdom inside me (a) sensed the stress, (b) was terrified for me, and (c) gave me something new and hard to focus on in order to prevent me from lapsing into a despair coma — and also to keep me from having a jelly jar of wine in my hand.
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Andre Dubus
Andre Dubus’s “Sacraments” [July 1999] spoke to my soul. In spite of, or perhaps because of, what Dubus experienced in his life, he somehow managed to climb out of the “small box of ego-centered, limited thinking” that holds most of us captive. He perceived that “the outward signs of God’s love” — sacraments — “do indeed stretch to infinity.”
I was raised in the Catholic Church but have not attended Mass for many years. Dubus has opened my eyes and allowed me to see the gift of sacraments in an entirely new way.
I was stunned by the beauty of Andre Dubus’s “Sacraments.” When I finished his essay, I turned to the contributors’ notes to find out more about the author and how he had come to view life as he does. I was devastated to learn that he had recently died. It felt like a terrible personal loss: I sat on my chair holding The Sun and cried. But because of him, I did not feel alone.