I Don’t Want To Be

Sometimes I Long For A Convent Cell, With The Sublime Wisdom Of Centuries Set Out On Bookshelves All Along The Wall And A View Across The Cornfields--there Must Be Cornfields And They Must Wave In The Breeze--and There I Would Immerse Myself In The Wisdom Of The Ages And In Myself. Then I Might Perhaps Find Peace And Clarity. But That Would Be No Great Feat. It Is Right Here, In This Very Place, In The Here And The Now, That I Must Find Them.

I Don't Think I Have Nerves Of Steel, Far From It, But I Can Certainly Stand Up To Things. I Am Not Afraid To Look Suffering Straight In The Eyes.

When I Pray, I Never Pray For Myself, Always For Others, Or Else I Hold A Silly, Naive, Or Deadly Serious Dialogue With What Is Deepest Inside Me, Which For The Sake Of Convenience I Call God. Praying To God For Something For Yourself Strikes Me As Being Too Childish For Words. To Pray For Another's Well-being Is Something I Find Childish As Well; One Should Only Pray That Another Should Have Enough Strength To Shoulder His Burden. If You Do That, You Lend Him Some Of Your Own Strength.

That Fear Of Missing Out On Things Makes You Miss Out On Everything.

I Feel Like A Small Battlefield In Which The Problems, Or Some Of The Problems, Of Our Time Are Being Fought Out. All One Can Hope To Do Is Keep Oneself Humbly Available, To Allow Oneself To Be A Battlefield. After All, The Problems Must Be Accommodated, Have Somewhere To Struggle And Come To Rest And We, Poor Little Humans, Must Put Our Inner Space At Their Service And Not Run Away.