Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Whirring Wings

TO:                The Editor
FROM:           L.B.
SUBJECT:      Ideas for my new column

Whirring wings, shepherds, false prophets in sheep's clothing and wolves:

  • Woe to the land of whirring wings (Isaiah 18:1)
  • Should not shepherds take care of the flock? (Ezekiel 34:2)
  • Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. (Matthew 7:15)

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

The Whole

To know, to judge, to understand:
To see the whole in a grain of sand . . .

Thursday, June 10, 2010

French Thought of the Day

Il y a des gens qu'on rencontre, qu'on voit tous les jours, dont on serre la main, avec qui on mange, avec qui on couche, avec qui on dort, et qui sont des morts.
L.B.

[Here]

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Silent Hour of the Night

'You ask whether your poems are good. You send them to publishers; you compare them with other poems; you are disturbed when certain publishers reject your attempts. Well now, since you have given me permission to advise you, I suggest that you give all that up. You are looking outward, and above all else, that you must not do now. No one can advise and help you, no one.

There is ony one way: Go within. Search for the cause. Find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this test: Does it stretch out its roots to the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, "I must," then build your life upon it. It has become your necessity. Your life, in even the most mundane and least significant hour, must become a sign, a testimony to this urge.'

(Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)