On Knowing

"The distance between the heart and the mind

is greater than the distance of heaven to earth."

Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian (1872-1970)

hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia- the fear of long words

The weekend Calvin Seerveld spent in our home, he walked in, stopped, smiled, and said, "Your home is more aesthetically obedient than mine." I have thought about those words many times.

Last night I dreamed I was having a conversation with a student. I asked the student, "What do you know?" They began a response but I stopped them. Again, I asked, "What do you know?! Not, what do you think or believe?" I have been chewing on the question all day.

This morning I read this-

"And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth." Job 19:25.

This I know-

In words there is life and there is death.

My wife once told me, "You live in your own little world."

Guilty as charged. I'm working on getting out more.

In The Elements of Style, by Wm. Strunk and E.B. White, I just read-

Choose a suitable design and hold to it.

The first principle of composition, therefore, is to foresee

or determine the shape of what is to come and pursue that shape.

I am God's poema, His composition. I have seen glimpses of the shape I am to become, but, as Brancusi said, "To see far is one thing: going there is another."

This I also know-

God loves me.

An Embarrassment

Wendell Berry

"Do you want to ask

the blessing?"

"No. If you do,

go ahead."

He went ahead:

his prayer dressed up

in Sunday clothes

rose a few feet

and dropped with a soft

thump.

If a lonely soul

did ever cry out

in company its true

outcry to God

it would be as though

at a sedate party

a man suddenly

removed his clothes

and took his wife

passionately into his arms.