Beethoven's String Quartets Express Pain

Theology Is-- Or Should Be-- A Species Of Poetry,which Read Quickly Or Encountered In A Hubbub Of Noise Makes No Sense. You Have To Open Yourself To A Poem With A Quiet, Receptive Mind, In The Same Way You Might Listen To A Difficult Piece Of Music... If You Seize Upon A Poem And Try To Extort Its Meaning Before You Are Ready, It Remains Opaque. If You Bring Your Own Personal Agenda To Bear Upon It, The Poem Will Close Upon Itself Like A Clam, Because You Have Denied Its Unique And Separate Identity, Its Inviolate Holiness.

But Human Beings Fall Easily Into Despair, And From The Very Beginning We Invented Stories That Enabled Us To Place Our Lives In A Larger Setting, That Revealed An Underlying Pattern, And Gave Us A Sense That, Against All The Depressing And Chaotic Evidence To The Contrary, Life Had Meaning And Value.

The Study Of The Traditions Doesn't Necessarily Make You Want To Convert To Another Tradition, But It Helps You To See Your Own Differently And Expands Your Outlook.

Yes, All Fundamentalists Feel That In A Secular Society, God Has Been Relegated To The Margin, To The Periphery And They Are All In Different Ways Seeking To Drag Him Out Of That Peripheral Position, Back To Center Stage.

Islam Is A Religion Of Success. Unlike Christianity, Which Has As Its Main Image, In The West At Least, A Man Dying In A Devastating, Disgraceful, Helpless Death. The Cross, Crucified, And That Turned Into Victory. Mohammad Was Not An Apparent Failure. He Was A Dazzling Success, Politically As Well As Spiritually, And Islam Went From Strength To Strength To Strength.