Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity... it is exactly this balance of apparent contradictions that has been the whole buoyancy of the healthy man. The secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid... The one created thing which we cannot look at is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of its own victorious invisibility.
-Chesterton, Orthodoxy
9/29/08
9/18/08
The Castle-Builder
A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks,
A dreamy boy, with brown and tender eyes,
A castle-builder, with his wooden blocks,
And towers that touch imaginary skies.
A gentle boy, with soft and silken locks,
A dreamy boy, with brown and tender eyes,
A castle-builder, with his wooden blocks,
And towers that touch imaginary skies.
A fearless rider on his father's knee,
An eager listener unto stories told
At the Round Table of the nursery,
Of heroes and adventures manifold.
There will be other towers for thee to build;
There will be other steeds for thee to ride;
There will be other legends, and all filled
With greater marvels and more glorified.
Build on, and make thy castles high and fair,
Rising and reaching upward to the skies;
Listening to voices in the upper air,
Nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries.
Longfellow
9/12/08
9/8/08
I find that in the summer's end, while many things change,
many things stay. I take the taxi to the hill. I scatter dust
as I run down the sloping grass, wondering why --
why the days blink so fast? The season is changing and so is my
mood. My thoughts are flying a million directions; and to my
indignation, some are wanting to lie dormant, wrapped cozily
in a tartan plaid! My summer impulsive wildness is getting sleepy
and swirling smoke and fires and flickering shadows on the
walls sound nice. The warm breeze reminds me of coldness and
scarves. My ideas are starting to turn... turn colors like the
leaves soon will. And my thoughts... oh my thoughts... some are
flying south, but some... some are dreaming of cinnamon and
wool, hungrily dreaming of past summer days as if they were a
custard of pleasant fairy tales. Oh. And taxi! Could you please
stop at the next coffee shop?
I need some warmth from this sudden chilliness.
as I run down the sloping grass, wondering why --
why the days blink so fast? The season is changing and so is my
mood. My thoughts are flying a million directions; and to my
indignation, some are wanting to lie dormant, wrapped cozily
in a tartan plaid! My summer impulsive wildness is getting sleepy
and swirling smoke and fires and flickering shadows on the
walls sound nice. The warm breeze reminds me of coldness and
scarves. My ideas are starting to turn... turn colors like the
leaves soon will. And my thoughts... oh my thoughts... some are
flying south, but some... some are dreaming of cinnamon and
wool, hungrily dreaming of past summer days as if they were a
custard of pleasant fairy tales. Oh. And taxi! Could you please
stop at the next coffee shop?
I need some warmth from this sudden chilliness.
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