Several of the 15 brothers who inhabit the monastery — accepting its vows of poverty, celibacy and obedience, and embracing its extensive if not absolute silence — had prior lives in the worldly hurly-burly.
What is paradoxical, illogical, and incomprehensible to the rational, conceptual, natural, scientific, secular, human understanding is how a transcendent, perfect God can appear in ordinary human and worldly forms; how what is absolute and eternal can be expressed in limited words, in trees and rivers, in historical beings and animals, and in dreams and other human experiences.
In return for a person's willingness to participate in this Holy War, described as a sacred activity, the Pope promised for those who took up arms against the "infidels" absolute indulgence, that is, total pardon for their worldly sins and remission from punishment in purgatory.
It was a place of absolute tranquillity, serene and still — the end of the world with no worldly concerns.
So, dear friends of the Internet, I thought I'd bestow some of my obviously worldly and ever valued teenage opinions on who are the absolute must-sees of the upcoming Austin City Limits festival.
The story of a passionate love affair between two young women seemed to me to be acted and directed with absolute candour and integrity, though I couldn't help predicting that, as with all sexually explicit movies, some worldly pundit was bound to declare the sex scenes to be "boring".
"This generation is worldly.
"Worldly Wise, Locally Savvy".
Veronica seemed lively, worldly.
