Tuesday, December 16, 2008

and so

There are more songs in our souls than the tongue is able to utter. When detached from its original insights, the discursive mind becomes a miser, and when we discover that concepts bring no relief to our outraged conscience and thirst for integrity, we turn to the origin of thought, to the endless shore that lies across the logical.
Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1951. 17

2 comments:

ms said...

then who is with us? It's easy to know at times, and intellectually it's asy to knwo, but what about the rest of the time? Is He realy with us always? Why does He hide so thoroughy so often? And when its friends, why do they do the same thing disappearing and leaving is hanging there swinging alone, waiting for the ravens to come suck the jelly from our eyes?

brtom said...

"then who is with us?"

goofy answer: dunno ... haven't finished the book yet

better (?) answer: Heschel is moving toward an acknowledgment of the reality of The Ineffable ... that fundamental reality which cannot be discoursed upon but only known through experience ... which raises the questions of "Do I know it? How? When? Where?" and, of course, your (mine and our) own profound wonder about why we often feel so abandoned.

truest answer: i got no answer.

(do ravens suck or pluck?)