A Letter Makes Ordinary Things Seem Important.

You See How It Is Godlike To Love The Being Of Someone. Your Existence Is A Delight To Us. I Hope You Never Have To Long For A Child As I Did, But Oh, What A Splendid Thing It Has Been That You Came Finally, And What A Blessing To Enjoy You Now For Almost Seven Years.

That's The Strangest Thing About This Life, About Being In The Ministry. People Change The Subject When They See You Coming. And Then Sometimes Those Very Same People Come Into Your Study And Tell You The Most Remarkable Things. There's A Lot Under The Surface Of Life, Everyone Knows That. A Lot Of Malice And Dread And Guilt, And So Much Loneliness, Where You Wouldn't Really Expect To Find It, Either.

The Assumption Behind Any Theology That I've Ever Been Familiar With Is That There Is A Profound Beauty In Being, Simply In Itself. Poetry, At Least Traditionally, Has Been An Educing Of The Beauty Of Language, The Beauty Of Experience, The Beauty Of The Working Of The Mind, And So On. The Pastor Does, Indeed, Appreciate It.

There Are A Thousand Thousand Reasons To Live This Life, Everyone Of Them Sufficient

I Don't Know Exactly What Covetous Is, But In My Experience It Is Not So Much Desiring Someone Else's Virtue Or Happiness As Rejecting It, Taking Offense At The Beauty Of It.