Drops

Milk for babes, and tears for strong men.

We cringe before the moment, and crow before eternity.

I give my Lord this moment, all else I leave to Him.

The earth is a part of you,
no less than the foot that walks upon it.
In fact, you would last longer without the foot.

Generally speaking,
the fewer words we employ,
the greater our force of expression.

I regard long speeches with suspicion.
A good point is easily and speedily made,
if only it is sincere; obfuscation takes time.

Speech is an expression of force.
We deplete ourselves of vital strength
by nothing so much as a prattling tongue.

As I read "A Short and Easy Method of Prayer" by the mystic Jeanne Guyon, the very first instruction she provides is not to be concerned with the speed and volume of our spiritual reading. Our goal, she says, is to trigger the experience of theophany by the recognition of a single phrase or word -- and, ultimately, by silence alone. We are not to read quickly, but deeply. We are to dwell over every image or idea which distinguishes itself by some feeling of poignancy. We are to remain receptive to that poignancy; never to rush ahead, like children scattering the scent of flowers in their haste to smell more flowers. In reading, our goal is not to finish a book, but to be done with it. Really done with it. Just as, in travel, we do not desire to reach a destination, but to make a journey; to savor the sights and sounds, so as to add to our stock of experience, and to arrive more richly rewarded than when we left. What does it profit us, to close the covers on a book, yet retain nothing of it's contents? Or to retain only the most superficial points; the data and not the thrust; the letter and not the spirit? A book devoured in this way (devoured whole) must still be digested, but the stomach will be forced to perform, not without distress, those actions which the teeth refused. And this is true of all experience; of the greater journey, the greater tome, the greater banquet, that is life. Is it any wonder, to see old age spent in the mulling over of experiences which were so imperfectly understood when they occurred? At the pace we now live our lives, it would appear that many more lifetimes, or "afterlifetimes", would be needed, in order to process and fully integrate all that has happened to us thus far.

Only talent sees genius.

In paradise, all hearts are just the same, but then they break differently, and they heal in odd, misshapen, unexpected ways. They never cast the same shadows again.

I'm more likely to judge a person for being guarded, -- for not opening up and showing me something real, -- than for anything they could possibly show me.

The wise know well how to contemplate old age and death, but every simple man thinks he has time enough to spare, and imagines the years stretched out languidly before him, in which he will perform those good and pleasurable works he has conceived in his heart; a thoroughly presumptuous way to live, when you know not whether you shall awake tomorrow morning!