I just started reading this book called Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Anne Dillard, who I think is probably a genius. Here are some quotes that I love already, from the mere 6 pages I've read:
"In the Koran, Allah asks, "The heaven and the earth and all in between, thinkest thou I made them in jest?" It's a good question. What do we think of the created universe, spanning an unthinkable void of nothingness, those sickening reaches of time in either direction? If the giant water bug was not made in jest, was it then made in earnest? Pascal uses a nice term to describe the notion of the creator's, once having called forth the universe, turning his back to it: Dues Absconditus. Is this what we think happened? Was the sense of it there, and God absconded with it, ate it, like a wolf who disappears round the edge of the house with the Thanksgiving turkey? "God is subtle," Einstein said, "but not malicious." Again, Einstein said that "nature conceals her mystery by means of her essential grandeur, not by her cunning." It could be that God has not absconded, but spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem. In making the thick darkness a swaddling band for the sea, God "set bars and doors" and said, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further." But have we come even that far? Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?"
"Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them."
"We're played on like a pipe; our breath is not our own."
"Nature is like one of those line drawings of a tree that are puzzles for children: Can you find hidden in the leaves a duck, a house, a boy, and bucket, a zebra, and a boot?"
I have more.
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Aly! I didn't realize I was so stupid and didn't have you on my list thing. My deepest apologies. Anyway, I find it extremely refreshing to read the things your write. I think it is because you are a little like me, which might sound like self-flattery. You know, saying that I like your stuff cuz it's like mine. But that isn't it at all. What I mean is: I like to read other people's blogs and feel the variety that people are, but it's always nice to come back and read familiarity, something that feels like me but is still new and interesting. Ok, I'm sure that didn't make a whole lot of sense. If you get anything from this comment it should be this: keep posting, you're blessing me.
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