Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.
– St. Augustine
It reminds me that a student once approached his master and asked, “Master, what is the path to enlightenment?”
The master answered, “humility.”
“And how long is the path?”
“How would I know?”
Death tugs at my ear and says, “Live, I am coming.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Paul Atreides
My sister-in-law posted this on my Facebook this week. I think it’s one of the most profound insights I’ve pondered in a while. And I believe it does not overstate the unreality of fear. Sometimes it seems so much me, so much what I am and own, but in truth it is trying to own me.
Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue.
Quotes for a Friday evening:
And with that a sob broke from her, and she turned her back to him again, her shoulders shaking in the exquisite evening dress by Trigère.
– Danielle Steele
I’ve had an unhappy life, thank God.
– Russell Baker
…She lives
below luck-level, never imagining some lottery
will change her load of pottery to wings.
Her only levity is patience,
the sport of truly chastened things.– Kay Ryan, from Turtle
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
-H.L. Mencken
That is very true. God gives each of us a talent, in the expectation that we’ll know better than to bury it for safekeeping. For some, it’s more subtle than being a genius in poetry or music, and in some of us – like me – it’s just as lopsided as that, but just more dull. By subtle I mean that some people have the talent for being a good listener in times of crisis, a loving parent, or a good neighbor. Some people care for the helpless, voiceless creatures around us.
Those talents are no less important in the Web 2.0 of life than to be a Shakespeare or a Tiger Woods.
Sadly, some people have a great talent for obstruction, for failure, and for abject indifference. I think we should work harder to identify them and move them out of the way. They are vexations to our peace and happiness.
He said, being purposefully obscure.
A couple of days ago, I got a phone call. It was my Dad. He said, “Look outside. Believe it or not, it’s raining.”
So I did, and it was. Which is pretty cool, because we go for several months every year with no measurable rain at all. The Santa Barbara area is basically an arid coastal plain; in other words, a desert. This pretty little spattering didn’t really break the rule, because it wasn’t measurable. And it seems like every summer we get one bleak spattering, one wimpy thunderstorm, barely damp above the level of dry lightning. But it was nice – a brief reminder that God is in His Heaven, etc.
His neighbor walked up to him and said, “Hey, wise old man, it’s raining.”
“I know,” he said.
“You’re getting wet.”
“Indeed.”
“Why don’t you open that umbrella?”
“Oh, my umbrella?” He held it out and looked at it, and showed it to his neighbor, as if the man hadn’t already seen it. “This umbrella?” said the wise old man. “Oh, it’s been broken for many years.”
“Then … oh dear … then why in the world are you carrying it around?” asked the neighbor.
“Because I didn’t think it was going to rain.”
I thought I heard
the Summer die.
It was a small sound
and hollow.
He sat here with me
under this sky made of steam
with a tired smile
and his hat on the floor.
We only said Good morning
and that was always early
But there was one day
of rain,
one shower at midnight.
I hope he will forgive me
his sad sad death.
(c) 1992 by Kyle Kimberlin
I was just sitting here thinking that I maybe ought to got into the kitchen and put on a little pot of decaf coffee, and about the surpassingly profound, though perhaps not self-evident truism that half of all people are below average. Half, I suppose, are above. And as the guy perched precariously right smack in the middle, it falls to me to remind those of you over on that side that some folks talk slow and always seem about a block and a half from the end of the sentence, while others sort stacks of useless paragraphs like cord wood. Either way, it’ll be necessary to encounter them with patience.
So here are a few lines of poetry.
Even before she reached the empty house,
She beat her wings ever so lightly, rose,
Followed a bee where apples blew like snow;
And then, forgetting what she wanted there,
Too full of blossom and green light to care,
She hurried to the ground, and slipped below.from “My Grandmother’s Ghost” by James Wright
Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty.
– Stephen King, novelist (b. 1947)
I’ve been waiting for a while to spot and post a ponderable from Stephen King. He’s one of my favorite writers, though not for the same reasons as, say, Faulkner or McCarthy. King knows how to tell a story. The pages damn near turn themselves.
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
– Samuel Johnson
Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense.
Any reactions to this out there?
Metaphor 