cgl

​This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.

​A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

​Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

​The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

​Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

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“Some people, some ideas, fell on fertile ground; Vincent was never to know to what an amazing extent that was true of his own work.

The metaphor of germination meant an enormous amount to Vincent, perhaps partly because of the extraordinary, still unfolding, transformations of his own life from art dealer into preacher into painter. He also hoped for the remaking of human life into something which would escape the bitter suffering that seemed too often to be the lot of mortal men and certainly of Vincent van Gogh. Art was a way of imagining a future world. The Sower was a symbol of resurrection.”