We Still And Always Want

Why Are We Reading If Not In Hope That The Writer Will Magnify And Dramatize Our Days, Will Illuminate And Inspire Us With Wisdom, Courage, And The Possibility Of Meaningfulness, And Will Press Upon Our Minds The Deepest Mysteries, So That We May Feel Again Their Majesty And Power? What Do We Ever Know That Is Higher Than That Power Which, From Time To Time, Seizes Our Lives, And Reveals Us Startlingly To Ourselves As Creatures Set Down Here Bewildered?

When I Teach, I Preach. I Thump The Bible. I Exhort My Students Morally. I Talk To Them About The Dedicated Life.

Spend The Afternoon. You Can't Take It With You.

It Has Always Been A Happy Thought To Me That The Creek Runs On All Night, New Every Minute, Whether I Wish It Or Know It Or Care, As A Closed Book On A Shelf Continues To Whisper To Itself Its Own Inexhaustible Tale. So Many Things Have Been Shown So To Me On These Banks, So Much Light Has Illumined Me By Reflection Here Where The Water Comes Down, That I Can Hardly Believe That This Grace Never Flags, That The Pouring From Ever-renewable Sources Is Endless, Impartial, And Free.

Hasidism Has A Tradition That One Of Man's Purposes Is To Assist God In The Work Of Redemption By "hallowing" The Things Of Creation. By A Tremendous Heave Of His Spirit, The Devout Man Frees The Divine Sparks Trapped In The Mute Things Of Time; He Uplifts The Forms And Moments Of Creation, Bearing Them Aloft Into That Rare Air And Hallowing Fire In Which All Clays Must Shatter And Burst. Keeping The Subsoil World Under Trees In Mind, In Intelligence, Is The Least I Can Do.