Notre coeur est un instrument incomplet, une lyre où il manque des cordes et où nous sommes forcés de rendre les accents de la joie sur le ton consacré aux soupirs.
In 1814, Chateaubriand published a pamphlet called De Buonaparte et des Bourbons. It was an attack on Napoleon, accusing him of being an evil tyrant and Italian. He also called him “half-African”. He argued in favor of the ancien régime to replace Napoleon in France. My personal favorite line about Napoleon: “His rather vast head is the empire of darkness and confusion.”
Bruce Springsteen: 'I have a “personal” relationship with Jesus. I believe deeply in his love, his ability to save.'
Chateaubriand: 'but herein lies the glory of the mystery: Christ was the man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs; his heart melted like that of a merely human creature, and he never manifested any sign of anger except against insensibility and obduracy of soul. Love one another, was his incessant exhortation.'
'Chasing something in the night'
Bruce Springsteen: “It was a kindness I’ve never forgotten. Over the years as a St. Rose student I had felt enough of Catholicism’s corporal and emotional strain. On my eighth-grade graduation day, I walked away from it all, finished, telling myself, “Never again.” I was free, free, free at last… and I believed it… for quite a while. However, as I grew older, there were certain things about the way I thought, reacted, behaved. I came to ruefully and bemusedly understand that once you’re a Catholic, you’re always a Catholic. So I stopped kidding myself. I don’t often participate in my religion but I know somewhere… deep inside… I’m still on the team.
This was the world where I found the beginnings of my song. In Catholicism, there existed the poetry, danger and darkness that reflected my imagination and my inner self. I found a land of great and harsh beauty, of fantastic stories, of unimaginable punishment and infinite reward. It was a glorious and pathetic place I was either shaped for or fit right into. It has walked alongside me as a waking dream my whole life. So as a young adult I tried to make sense of it. I tried to meet its challenge for the very reasons that there are souls to lose and a kingdom of love to be gained. I laid what I’d absorbed across the hardscrabble lives of my family, friends and neighbors. I turned it into something I could grapple with, understand, something I could even find faith in. As funny as it sounds, I have a “personal” relationship with Jesus. He remains one of my fathers, though as with my own father, I no longer believe in his godly power. I believe deeply in his love, his ability to save… but not to damn… enough of that.”
Bruce Springsteen: BORN TO RUN (book)
‘Well, I believe in the love that you gave me
I believe in the faith that could save me
I believe in the hope
And I pray that some day
It may raise me above these
Badlands’
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band - Badlands (London Calling: Live In Hyde Park, 2009)
. . .
Chateaubriand: “but herein lies the glory of the mystery: Christ was the man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs; his heart melted like that of a merely human creature, and he never manifested any sign of anger except against insensibility and obduracy of soul. Love one another, was his incessant exhortation. Father, he exclaimed, writhing under the torments inflicted by his executioners, forgive them; for they know not what they do. When on the point of quitting his beloved disciples, he was all at once dissolved in tears; he experienced all the terrors of death, all the anguish of the cross; the blood-sweat trickled down his divine cheeks; he complained that his Father had forsaken him. Father, said he, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. Then it was that that expression, fraught with all the sublimity of grief, fell from his lips: —’My soul is sorrowful, even unto death.’”
Our Songs for this Saturday!!
Simon Kearney ft. Gabrielle Shonk – Jusqu’a Noel
Samara Joy – Warm in December
Grandaddy – It Was a Silent Night At least Until Jeff Lynne Arrived
Jon Pardi – Beer for Santa
Chateaubriand – Notre Dernier Sapin
Bright Eyes and John Prine – Christmas in Prison
Emmy Law – John Denver
Panter Bélico – Un Vaquero En Navidad (A Cowboy At Christmas)
Valley –…
HISTOIRE | La République : coupable de « crimes contre l’humanité » pour asseoir son autorité ? ➽ http://bit.ly/Crimes-Republique Période d’exactions perpétrées sous l’égide d’une Première République née en septembre 1792, la Terreur, qui notamment enfanta le célèbre Tribunal révolutionnaire envoyant à la mort des personnes appartenant pour plus de 80% au tiers-état et non à la noblesse ou au clergé, donna pour la première fois au monde « le lâche et impitoyable spectacle de l’assassinat juridique des femmes et des enfants en masse », écrit en 1836 Chateaubriand