Was this what he believed, what he had always believed when I talked on and on about goodness? Was he making the violin say it? Was he deliberately creating those long, pure liquid notes to say that beauty meant nothing because it came from the despair inside him, and it had nothing to do with the despair finally, because the despair wasn't beautiful, and beauty then was a horrid irony?
Each day I pray as my ancestors did. They once prayed to gods that were fallible and fickle. Then to one God who stood in harsh and terrifying judgment. Then to a loving, forgiving God. And then finally to a power with no name.
At the General Council of Ephesus (431), called by Emperor Theodosius II, who had until then supported Nestorius, Cyril got Nestorius deposed before the late arrival of his Syrian supporters. When the Syrians arrived, under the leadership of John, patriarch of Antioch, they proceeded to condemn Cyril and his followers. Finally, the Roman legates arrived and approved Cyril’s action. The whole affair was disgustingly riddled with power politics.
Eventually Theodosius II surrendered to pressure and expelled Nestorius from the capital. He died around 450, an exile in Egypt. Most of his supporters, however, refused to accept his excommunication. Nestorius’s followers fled to Persia and founded there the Nestorian Church, which soon enjoyed an active life.
“You can stop swimming now, Lily. We finally reached the shore.”
Have you ever had that feeling… like you’ve been asleep for a really long time? For what seems like a lifetime. And you have crazy dreams. Things you didn’t even know your brain could ever imagine. But when you finally wake up… the dream isn’t over?
Philosophical breakthroughs occur not when some age-old problem is finally solved but when a new problem comes along to displace it.
