Memory runs along deep, fixed channels in the brain, like electricity along its conduits; only a cataclysm can make the electrons rear up in shock and slide over into another channel. The human mind seems doomed to believe, as simply as a rooster believes, that where we are now is the only possibility
What's it called when a hellhole hits a cataclysm? A catastro[phrack]. I just coined that, didn't I?
You know what a miracle is. Not what Bakunin said. But another world’s intrusion into this one. Most of the time we coexist peacefully, but when we do touch there’s cataclysm.
What was lost in the European cataclysm was not only the Jewish past--the whole life of a civilization--but also a major share ofthe Jewish future. . . . [ellipsis in source] It was not only the intellect of a people in its prime that was excised, but the treasure of a people in its potential.
Naive optimism and pervasive pessimism are both to be avoided, therefore. It's not an easy balance to maintain, to be asked to work away in the Ninevehs of our lives without being so conscious of the coming cataclysm that we are not serious citizens of our communities and nations. By living and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are doing the most relevant thing we can do by way of helping. (There are civic and other chores to be done, of course. ) Day in and day out, the gospel is the one thing that is most relevant, and we are to be of good cheer.
I believe that the people who survive a cataclysm, rather than those who stand by and analyze it, are nearly always the more credible witnesses to their own history.
My mind is filled with cataclysm and apocalypse. I wish for earthquakes, eruptions, flood.
We have in fact entered upon the final phase. . . , the darkest period of this dark age, the state of dissolution from which there is to be no emerging except through a cataclysm, since it is no longer a mere revival which is required, but a complete renovation.
It seemed that a woman should remember the night a new life began inside her. Such a miracle should not be the result of routine or an ordinary coming together. Life should begin in a cataclysm of heat and fury bathed in the sweat of passion and urgency.
