A Quote by Silouan the Athonite
The Holy Apostle John the Theologian says that the commandments of God are not difficult, but easy (I John, 5:3). But they are only easy because of love, while they are all difficult if there is no love.
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Fashion is a dream. It's difficult, and there are many aspects of fashion that are very difficult, but if you love it like I do, because I really have a passion, now, for fashion, it's not easy, but nothing is easy in life.
It is possible to fail in many ways . . . while to succeed is possible only in one way (for which reason also one is easy and the other difficult - to miss the mark easy, to hit it difficult).
Praised be St John, the glorified of God! Lord, grant me the prayers of St John, disciple and friend whom thou lovest, apostle of love. Thy love, forever, eternal, that my faith may become as complete, as flaming and tranquil, as his, and pierce as deep and speak as simply in the spirit.
It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.
It's easy to mock a man who has founded a religion based on John Coltrane, who considers 'A Love Supreme,' whatever its merits as a jazz album, to be holy scripture.
All love is of God, the Apostle John reminds us, and because love cannot be buried in a coffin, the beautiful but broken relationships of Earth are resumed in the Father's home above where, as members of the same family, we dwell together in perfect harmony.
It is easy to be a slave to the letter, and difficult to enter into the spirit; easy to obey a number of outward rules, difficult to enter intelligently and self-sacrificingly into the will of God.
Photography is a medium of formidable contradictions. It is both ridiculously easy and almost impossibly difficult. It is easy because its technical rudiments can readily be mastered by anyonwith a few simple instructions. It is difficult because, while while the artist working in any other medium begins with a blank surface and gradually brings his conception into being, the photographer is the only imagemaker who begins with the picture completed. His emotions, his knowledge, and his native talent are brought into focus and fixed beyond recall the moment the shutter of his camera has closed.
If you find it difficult to love the human in someone, then love the divine in him. The divine in him is God. God exists in that person just as God exists in you. To love God is extremely easy because God is divine and perfect. Each time you look at an individual, if you can consciously become aware of God's existence in him, then you will not be disturbed by his or her imperfections or limitations.
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I think any kind of comic sequence is as easy and as difficult as it is written. So, if it is written well, then it becomes easy. Sometimes you find it difficult because the humour is not coming out.
Why pray? Evidently, God likes to be asked. God certainly does not need our wisdom or our knowledge, nor even the information contained in our prayers ("your Father knows what you need before you ask him"). But by inviting us into the partnership of creation, God also invites us into relationship. God is love, said the apostle John. God does not merely have love or feel love. God is love and cannot not love. As such, God yearns for relationship with the creatures made in his image.
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Bad habits are easy to develop but difficult to live with. Good habits are difficult to develop, but easy to live with. If you are willing to be uncomfortable for little while, so you can press past the initial pain of change, in the long run, your life will be much better.
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