A Quote by Marilynne Robinson

Ordinary things have always seemed numinous to me — © Marilynne Robinson
Ordinary things have always seemed numinous to me
The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experience you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character.
The difference between ordinary and extra-ordinary is so often just simply that little word - extra. And for me, I had always grown up with the belief that if someone succeeds it is because they are brilliant or talented or just better than me... and the more of these words I heard the smaller I always felt! But the truth is often very different... and for me to learn that ordinary me can achieve something extra-ordinary by giving that little bit extra, when everyone else gives up, meant the world to me and I really clung to it.
I always felt that when people found things that they didn't like about me, it seemed to distance them from me.
All my life, from birth, it's been a fight. And it always seemed to be another man's war. I always seemed to be fighting for someone else. But it always came back to me. The Word says we're born into sin, and sin always comes back to war.
In one way, I was always hip. I was hip in kindergarten. I was different from the others. There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things people didn't see. I always saw things in a hallucinatory way.
The thing that seemed to me so important about the psychedelic experience was that it happened to me. I wasn't reading John Chrysostom or Meister Eckhart. And so I assumed that I am a very ordinary person, therefore, if it happened to me it could happen to anyone.
I'd always admired writers. I'd always loved words on a page. Somehow, words seemed to bypass image and get straight to the heart of things. Somehow, words seemed big enough to contain pain, and sentences could pull broken bits together.
I really tried, or so I thought, to avoid lying, but it seemed to me that they forced it on me by the difference in their vision of things, so that I was always transposing reality for them into something they could understand.
I remember being taken to visit houses by my father, who then tested my powers of observation by expecting me to describe the things I had seen... Unusual furniture always seemed easier to remember than other things.
I feel I`ve always been on the outside and always on the edge of an abyss. The women I portray, and the woman I am, are ordinary but maybe find themselves in extra-ordinary circumstances, and what they do is at great cost.
I'd have to say, for me, as a child, my favorite memories were always centered around Christmas time. It always seemed like no matter how much money my parents had or didn't have, we got completely spoiled rotten. There were always presents under the tree, and we always did special things, like hide elves around the house.
It has always seemed somewhat paradoxical to me that we must constantly have the Lord command us to do those things which are for our own good.
Id have to say, for me, as a child, my favorite memories were always centered around Christmas time. It always seemed like no matter how much money my parents had or didnt have, we got completely spoiled rotten. There were always presents under the tree, and we always did special things, like hide elves around the house.
There were moments ... when it seemed that all one could be asked was just to keep the ashtrays clean, the bed made, the wastebaskets emptied, as if one never got to the real things because of the constant exhausting battle to keep ordinary life from falling apart.
(The Tao) is always present and always available. . . . If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere, even in the most ordinary things.
I don’t think there is any such thing as an ordinary mortal. Everybody has his own possibility of rapture in the experience of life. All he has to do is recognize it and then cultivate it and get going with it. I always feel uncomfortable when people speak about ordinary mortals because I’ve never met an ordinary man, woman, or child.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!