Of the river of time, he worries neither about its spring nor its delta.
What is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities – the getting of food, clothing and shelter? Why can’t reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net of there’s so little fish to catch?
This was all a bit much for me. The tone was right – loving and brave – but the details seemed bleak. I said nothing. It wasn’t for fear of angering Mr. Kumar. I was more afraid that in a few words thrown out he might destroy something that I loved. What if his words had the effect of polio on me? What a terrible disease that must be if it could kill God in a man.
The indifference of the many, combined with the active hatred of the few, has sealed the fate of animals.
I noticed how those who know the truth are always treated with suspicion and disdain. That was the case with Jesus, of course. But look at old Miss Marple. Always she knows, and everyone is surprised that she does. And the same with Hercule Poirot. How can that ridiculous little man know anything? But he does, he does. It is the triumph of the meek, in Agatha Christie as in the Gospels.
English was jazz music, German was classical music, French was ecclesiastical music, and Spanish was the music from the streets.
With the very first rays of light it came alive in me: hope. As things emerged in outline and filled with colour, hope increased until it was like a song in my heart. Oh, what it was to bask in it!
Doesn’t the telling of something always become a story?
That is Christianity at heart: a single miracle surrounded and sustained by stories, like an island surrounded by the sea.
Bapu Ghandi said, “All religions are true.” I just want to love God,” I blurted out, and looked down, red in the face.
He became a champion napper.
To her, writing is making stock and reading is sipping broth, but only the spoken word is the full roasted chicken.
I began to wait. My thoughts swung wildly. I was either fixed on practical details of immediate survival or transfixed by pain, weeping silently, my mouth open and my hands on my head.
Reason is my prophet and it tells me that as a watch stops, so we die. It’s the end.
I gave up trying to find out. Any knowledge I might gain was useless. I had no means of controlling where I was going – no rudder, no sails, no motor, some oars, but insufficient brawn.
Then normal sank.
But religion is more than rite and ritual. There is what the rite and ritual stand for.
It would no longer be the small thing it was before, but the most important thing in the world, the thing that would save my life. This happened time and again.
They would emerge a short distance away, sometimes three or four of them, a short lived archipelago of volcanic islands.
Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation.