In an age
of speed… nothing could be more invigorating than going slow.
Kindness
is like water, religion is like tea.
It’s a great luxury. It increases
the savor of life. It’s wonderful if you
have it. But you can survive without
tea, and you can’t survive without water.
Everyday
kindness and responsibility is the starting block for every life.
One is
reminded, at a level deeper than all words, how making a living and making a
life sometimes part in opposite directions.
We’ve
lost our Sundays, our weekends, our nights off—our holy days, as some would
have it…. More and more of us feel like emergency room physicians, permanently
on call, required to heal ourselves but unable to find the prescription for all
the clutter.
So much
of our lives takes place in our heads --- in memory or imagination, in
speculation or interpretation.
Finding
what feels like real life, the changeless and inarguable something behind all
our shifting thoughts, is less a discovery than a recollection.
A life of
stillness can sometimes lead not to art but to doubt or dereliction; anyone who
longs to see the light is signing on for many long nights alone in the dark.
You don’t
get over the shadows inside by simply walking away from them.
In an age
of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention.
