Easter

“In the old days, on Easter night, the Russian peasants used to carry the blessed fire home from church. The light would scatter and travel in all directions through the darkness, and the desolation of the night would be pierced and dispelled as lamps came on in the windows of the farmhouses one by one.”

- Thomas Merton

On the sadness of Easter, from "Crossroads"

Into Russ’s throat came the sadness of life’s brevity, the sadness of the sunless hour, the sadness of Easter. God was telling him very clearly what to do. He had to stay in Many Farms, where Keith had lived since 1960, so he could visit Keith and keep an eye on Perry. In light of Keith’s condition, his wish to enjoy sex with a person not Marion seemed even more trivial, and he’d been insane to imagine it happening in Arizona. He’d let himself forget how bleak the reservation was in late winter, how demanding it was to lead a work camp. 

And yet, when he thought of doing God’s will, at the cost of his week with Frances on the mesa, he felt unbearably sorry for himself. It was strange that self-pity wasn’t on the list of deadly sins; none was deadlier. 

- Jonathan Franzen, Crossroads

From "Stoner", by John Williams

“…In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another…”