Every craving that we experience finds a suitable object that satisfies and fulfills that longing.  Our body hungers; and there is food. We thirst; and there is water.  We are born brimming with curiosity; and there is a world to explore an the sensory equipment with which to do so.  Other ennobling passions both encompass and transcend bodily longing.  We crave intimacy and companionship; and there is human love, as essential to happiness and thriving as any nutrient.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 12-13

If it really is true that [the human] is merely the inevitable culmination of an improbably chemical reaction...involv[ing]'merely material' atoms, then the fact that he has been able to formulate the idea of 'an improbable chemical reaction' and to trace himself back to it is remarkable indeed.  That chemicals which are 'merely material' should come to understand their own nature is a staggering supposition.

Joseph Wood Crutch, The Great Chain of Life

Quoted in Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 11

Astrophysics may give a credible account of the origin of the stars, and Darwin might explain the development of the human eye, but neither can tell us why the night sky strikes us with soul-peircing quietude, or why our mind aches to understand what is so remote from bodily need.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 11

Neither the new believer nor the new doubter has necessarily progressed or reached enlightenment.  Nor has either one necessarily forced the evidence to fit a preconceived model of belief or doubt.  Rather, every time we turn our hearts and minds in the direction of giving meaning to our experiences, we are merely--and yet profoundly--arranging the evidence into a pattern--the pattern that makes the most sense to us at a given point on our journey.  Evidence does not construct itself into meaningful patterns.  That is our work to perform.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 9

Clearly, to aspire to be God is a sin; to desire to be like God is filial love and devotion.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 7

Life is not a lottery in which only the fortunate few born at the right time and place receive a winning ticket.  God's plan is wise enough, His love generous enough, that none will be left out.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 7

The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and which we have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true.  There must be grounds for doubt as well as belief, in order to render the choice more truly a choice, and therefore the more deliberate, and laden with personal vulnerability and investment.  An overwhelming preponderance of evidence on either side would make our choice as meaningless as would a loaded gun pointed at our heads.  The option to believe must appear on one's personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously between sets of demands held in dynamic tension.

Fortunately, in this world, one is always provided with sufficient materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial.  We are acted upon, in other words, by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings, our fears, our appetites, and our egos.  What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love.  That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.

...Only in the case of us mortals, there is something to tip the scale.  There is something to predispose us to a life of faith or a life of disbelief.  There is a heart that, in these conditions of equilibrium and balance, equally "enticed by the one or the other," is truly free to choose belief of skepticism, faith or faithlessness.

...Without constraint, without any form of mental compulsion, the act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts...The greatest act of self revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 4

The more we know empirically about the world, the more faith has become necessary. This is true on the level of both microbiology and physics as well as on the intergalactic level of astronomy. Empirical knowledge of the workings and character of physical life only keeps providing more evidence of our inability to find the rock-bottom reality of our material existence. So while our senses tell us that we live in a world that renders us meaningless and insignificant and that seems to defy our best efforts to make it intelligible, as if it were being perpetually made by a God too busy spinning off his many life forms to pay attention to our puny human lives, ...and have the audacity, bordering on insanity, to believe that our actions matter, that we can and should act on the world’s behalf.

George Handley, "Biocentrism at Sea"

And now, young people, thus anchored in the faith, and thus organized, we ask you to join the organizations in your wards, to heed the advice of the President of the Church, to affiliate with your quorums, with your auxiliary organizations, in your fast meetings, and there in these local groups express your thoughts, express your doubts, seek after the truth, apply measures that will appeal to those of your associates, and when you prove those measures to be effective and satisfying to the soul, then can the central organizations take those measures and adapt them to the whole as a universal benefit. In that way, and in that way only, will progress and efficiency be fostered. Don't stand out on the sidelines, and say, "This quorum is not doing its work," but get into the quorum and help it do its work. That is the way which God intends people to work in this Church, and it offers to you one of the best opportunities in the world.

-David O. McKay, Conference Report April 1934, pp. 23-24.

The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and which we have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true.  There must be grounds for doubt as well as beleif, in order to render the choice more truly a choice, and therefore the more deliberate, and laden with personal vulnerability and investment.  And overwhelming preponderance of evidence on either side would make our choice as meaningless as would a loaded gun pointed at our heads.  The option to believe must appear on one's personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously between sets of demands held in dynamic tension....We are acted upon, in other words, by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings our fears, our appetites, and our egos. What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 4

Reason must be a part of any solution to the mystery of life that we find satisfactory.  A supreme diety would no more gift us with intellect and expect us to forsake it in moments of bafflement, than He would fashion us eyes to see and bid us shut them to the stars.  Our vision draws us to that which lies beyond our ken--too distant, or too small, for our mortal powers of perception.

Terryl & Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps, pg. 4

But the reconciliation that Jesus offers is not as distant from reconciling ourselves to the mixture of pain and joy in the world as we may at first think. Nailed to a cross, in the midst of his execution, he said "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Lk. 23:34). He reconciled himself to his executioners though they had not repented of what they had done, though he had received no recompense for his suffering at their hands. He found the joy of reconciliation while yet in pain.

Jesus' reconciliation to his enemies did not require either their repentance or his heavenly reward. It happened in the midst of his suffering. That infinite, divine reconciliation ought to be our model of the reconciliation for which we aim both now and in the future. If we have taken Jesus' name on ourselves, we owe it to him and to our Christian covenant to identify ourselves with him to learn to be reconciled as he was, not after the fact of suffering but in it.

That does not mean allowing criminals to go free, refusing to hold them accountable for their crimes. It means, though, not allowing the need for justice to overcome the demand for reconciliation. Justice is an appropriate part of reconciliation, but we cannot refuse reconciliation because we are not yet satisfied that justice has been done. If vengeance is the Lord's and not ours (Dt. 32:5), then our demand for justice cannot be confused with a demand for vengeance. And when it is not, then it is compatible with reconciliation.

The Christian message is that reconciliation is possible, both now and, ultimately, in the presence of God. Jesus taught us that reconciliation does not mean the end of all pain, but the reconciliation of our pain with our love for others. That is certainly true in this life. Perhaps it is also true in the next. The promise is that families as narrow as a couple or as wide as the human race can be reconciled in their pain.

James Faulconer, "Reconciliation in Suffering," Patheos Blog

One learns the value of work by working, of play by playing, of food by eating; and one learns the value of faith by exercising faith, of love by trying to love fellow men.  Even so, if one would have faith in God, he must at least say to himself, "It could be that he lives.  I shall give the idea  fair trial.  I shall do his will.  I shall read the scriptures, expecially the life of Jesus, and I shall try to live as God would have me live.  I shall at least give religion a fair chance in my life."

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 138

Faith should not be considered a substitute for knowledge.  Whenever knowledge is available, it should be used.  For it is generallly better to live by knowledge in particular things than by faith, if knowledge is available...Fiath was never intended to be a blind substitute for knowledge, but rather an impelling motivation to seek and to know reality (see John 8:21-22)...Faith should not be considered an enemy to knowledge, nor a competitor.  The student should not feel compelled to choose between faith and knowledge.  Let him gain and use knowledge where it is available.  let him walk by faith where knowledge is not available. Let his faith include, but transcend his knowledge.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 128-129

Faith impells to action.  In the language of James, "Faith without works is dead."  One might also say that faith without works is not faith, but mere belief.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 126

Faith is adventurous and creative.  It not only is the sphere of the possible, but is also the power which often makes the possible come into being.  Faith is that remarkable quality of the human spirit which first envisages the possibilities of life, then lives as though these possibilities were realities, and by this action often makes them real.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 126

True religion should not be condemned for men's shortcomings any more than true science should be condemned for the errors of scientists, or great art for the failures of artists, or philosophy for the unacceptable theories of some philosophers, or marriage for the failure of many people to live it successfully.  Each of thes fields of human endeavor must be judged primarily for what it is at its best, and for what it can offer to us if we will folow its genuine purpose and method.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 120

What men object to in the name of religion is the presentation of a creed or body of beliefs in a spirit void of humility and love, in an attitude of arrogance with the implication that religious beliefs are beyond all error, question, or thoughtful examination.  This can be called the dogmatic attitude, which may characterize the scientist, philosopher, artist, or layman as well as the religionist.  The fact that religion claims to be of god sometimes encourages this dogmatic attitude among its followers, though ironically enough this kind of dogmatism is completely alien to the highest ideals of religion--humility and love.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 118

Lowell Bennion - On Institutionalism

There is always the danger that the fraternity will work to enhance itself rather than to serve its members; that the army will perpetuate itself and its own interest above service to the country...Religion does not always escape this limitation of institutions.  If leaders are not careful, the church becomes the end and the people the means of building and supporting it.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 95-96

Men have a perfect right to claim authority from God.  Granted his existence, there ar egood reasons to believet hat he would call and authorize men to be his servants on earth.  Authority implies a legal or rightful command without which orderly social action is quite impossible.  The principle of authoritarianism, by contrast, discounts man's ability to rule himself and advocates in principle the right of men to rule over their fellow men.  In this system of government authority is not looked upon as a necessary means of achieving desirable human goals, but rather as an end in itself.  In political science a dictatorshp is authoritarian; in religion any action that is carried out simply by reason of one's office and calling, with no regard for the value of that action in terms of religious purpose and principle, may be called authoritarian.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 116

Life is not only something to be thought about but also is to be lived. The living must go on continuously and cannot wait upon a completely satisfying theoretical orientation.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 113

If God is not, then the existence of all that is beautiful and in any sense good, is but the accidental and ineffective byproduct of blindly swirling atoms, or of the equally unpurposeful, though more conceptually complicated, mechanisms of present-day physics.  A man may well believe that this dreadful thing is true.  For to wish there should be not God is to wish that the things we love and strive to realize and make permanent, should be only temporary and doomed to frustration and destruction.  If life and its fulfillments are good, why should one rejoice in the news that God is dead and that there is nothing in the whole world but our frail and perishable selves that is concerned with anything that matters?  Not that such a prospect would diminish the duty to make the best of what we have while we have it.  Goodness is not made less good by a lack of cosmic support for it.  Morality is sanctionless and can never derive its validity from what is external to itself and to the life whose fulfillment it is.  Atheism leads not to badness but only to an incurabe sadness and loneliness.

-W.P. Montague

Quoted in Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 112

The universe itself is not simply matter in motion, indifferent to man's search for truth, goodness, and beauty,...the universe also possesses these spiritual qualities in some way.  And, though a natural or human catastrophe should destroy man with all of his ideals, ideas, and spiritual treasures, these cherished things would still survive because they are more than the creations of man.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 106

[Religion is] the faith that what is highest in the human spirit is deepest in the universe itself; that the things that matter most are not ultimately at the mercy of the things that matter least.

-Montague

Quoted in Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 106

A fundamental part of religion, it seems, is man's striving to be at peace with himself and to feel at home in the universe

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 105

Character is not made primarily in the library, the chapel, or the classroom, though inspiration may come to a person in those places.  Character is formed through everyday experiences: in human relations, while one is on a date, in the gym, on the job, or in the privacy of one's own resolve.  Everyday living is the crucible of one's moral nature.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 98

Happiness in marriage fulfils his deepest need, that of belonging to another person, of being needed, wanted, loved, and of loving someone else.  In the company of a friend, man feels free to be himself, knowing that he will be understood and accepted for just what he is. In fact, just to be a man omong men, to share the common lot of all men, can bring deep satisfaction to a human being.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 97

No one, whether working in the arts, in philosophy, or in religion, will contribute richly in his specialized field if he fails to keep in touch with the life common to all men and to live it fully.

Lowell Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth pg. 95-96

Dennis Johnson - On Introversion

God needs the hermit in the woods as much as he needs theman in the pulpit.

Denis Johnson, Train Dreams pg. 95

Three of the pups wandered off immediately as the little dog weaned them, but one, a dis-coordinated male, stayed around and was tolerated by its mother.  Grainier felt sure this dog was got of a wolf, but it never even whimpered in reply when the packs in the distance...sang at dusk.  The creature needed to be taught its nature, Grainier felt.  One evening he got down beside it and  howled.  The little pup only sat on its rump with an inch of pink tongue jutting stupidly from its closed mouth.  "You're not growing in the direction of your own nature, which is to howl when the others do," he told the mongrel.  He stood up straight himself and howled long and sorrowfully over the gorge, and over the low quiet river he could hardly see across this close to nightfall...Nothing from the pup. But often, threafter, when Grainier heard the wolvesat dusk, he laid his head back and howled for all he was worth, because it did him good.

Denis Johnson, Train Dreams, pg. 53

He poked through the caked mud around the grounds and found almost nothing he could recognize.  He scuffed along through the ashes and kicked up one of hte spikes he'd used in building the cabins's walls, but couldn't find any others.

He saw no sign of their Bible, either.  If the Lord had failed to protect even the book of his own Word, this proved to Grainier that here had come a fire stronger than God.

Denis Johnson, Train Dreams pg. 45

While most emotions lead to some kind of action, aesthetic experience is purely contemplative and is completely satisfying in itself.

Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 85)

Sometimes a student dedicated to the study of textbooks forgets that feeling plays an even larger role in his life than does reason.  Both the motivation to act and the satisfactions gained from action are felt.  Reason is a good guide and a needed one, but feeling is the dynamics of living.  We love and hate, fear and hope, desire happiness and hunger and thirst after truth and goodness. The feeling aspect of life cannot be gainsaid; it must be fulfilled.  and the arts beckon us to a rich source of deep emotional satisfaction.

Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 84-85)

Descriptive propositions are statements about fact, and are theoretically verifiable by any competent observer as either true, false, or having a certain degree of probability.  Normative propositions are assertions of value: their truth or falsity may therefore legitimately vary for different individuals.  Some of the most serious fallacies in eithical (and we might add scientific) reasoning arise from confusing the two types. 

Neither psychoanalysis nor anthropology is able to answer the questions of ethics.  Values and facts are independent types of meaning, and their relationship should not be oversimplified.

Philip Wheelwright, A Critical Introduction to Ethics

Quoted in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 66)

The most science can do is to discover the most efficient way to reach a desired result; it can never judge as to the ultimate worth of the desired end.

-Max Weber, "Wissenschaft als Beruf," in Wissenschaftslehre, pg. 540

Quoted in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 65)

The word objective is almost sacred to the scientist.  Every student should know its meaning.  The antonym for objective is subjective, which means personal.  The subjective world lies within oneself and includes one's feelings, desires, wishes, hopes, longings--one's whole private world, which is quite incommunicable to others.  On the other hand, objective means that attention is centered ont he object outside of the observing mind.  When we think objectively, our whole interest lies in the object that we wish to describe, measure, and observe as an entity in and of itself.  We try to set aside all likes and dislikes, all prejudices, all emotional coloring to behold the object "in the white light of objectivity."

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 57)

Church men realize that the authors of the Bible were not concerned with giving us a scientific view of hte heavenly bodies.  The church never should have become entangled in any particular view of astronomy...To read and interpret the Bible as a textbook in a particular science leads to conflict and confusion; to interpret it for what it was really intended and for what it is--a great record of religious aspiration and instruction--is both interested and inspired.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 48-49)

Science and religion likely are as different from one another as are science and art.  It is when one expects them both to speak the same language and to draw exactly the same conclusions about life that serious conflict arises.  If the scientist, in the name of science, talks about God, immortality, and the ultimate values of life, he is trespassing on the territory of religion and philosophy where he has no legitimate right to be.  If the student of religion, on the other hand, interprets the scriptures as textbooks in astronomy, physics, geology, and biology, he is trespassing in the field of science and is using the scriptures in a way that was not intended by their authors.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 48)

Many of the brethren chew tobacco, and I have advised them to be modest about it.  Do not take out oa whole plug of tobacco in meeting before the eyes of the congregation, and cut off a long slice and put it in your mouth, to the annoyance of everybody around.  Do not glory in this disgraceful practice.  If you must use tobacco, put a small portion in your mouth when no person sees you, and be careful that no one sees you chew it.  I do not charge you with sin.  you have the "Word of Wisdom."  Read it.  Some say, "Oh, as I do in private, so I do in public, and I am not ashamed of it."  It is, at least, disgraceful....Some men will go into a clean and beautifully-furnished parlour with tobacco in their mouths, and feel, "I ask no odds."  I would advise such men to be more modest, and not spit upon the carpets and furniture, but step to the door, and be careful not to let any person see you spit; or, what is better, omit chewing until you have an opportunity to do so without offending....We request all addicted to this paractice, to omit it while in their houses [the tabernacle].  Elders of Israel, if you must chew tobacco, omit it while in meeting, and when you leave, you can take a double portion, if you wish to.

-Brigham Young (sermon, Mar. 10, 1861 in Journal of Discourses 8:361-362; sermon of May 5th, 1870, Deseret News Weekly, May 11, 1870)

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 58)

It is impossible for a single human mind to comprehend all available scientific truth about man's life.  Nor can a single human mind be fully informed on even one scientific approach to the study of man.  our necessarily limited view is not too tragic if we learn to admit it, and if we are humble enough to listen to the views of other specialists.  The tragedy begins when a person with a single view tries to explain the whole of reality from such a narrow base.  It is unfortunate too when one thinks his limited view is the whole view; or when he thinks that because he is authoritative in one field, he is in all fields.  A person, in his blindness, sometimes quite innocently identifies his own view with the whole truth.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 41)

The artist experiences and interprets reality largely through the medium of feeling.  This explains why there is so much individuality in art and so little unanimity in contrast with science, which is based more on thought.  The sensitive, imaginative, creative insight of the artist, while related to thought and based on experience, seems to transcend them both in its apprehension and representation of reality.  Great artists have learned to express feeling and to trust it as a meaningful approach to truth.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 35)

Human life divided by reason leaves a remainder.

-Goethe

-Quoted in Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 21)

Authority is not a way of discovering truth, but is a method of transmitting knowledge gained in other ways.  And no one has the right to be authoritative in any field of knowledge--in science, philosophy, or religion--who has not earned that right by having gained knowledge and insight through reason, experience, or revelation.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 27)

Blind, submissive followers in any field, be it in government, science, or religion, lack the ability to discriminate between truth and error, good and evil, and between the weightier and lesser matters of the law.  They hardly have a soul to call their own.  This kind of discipleship is not befitting a Latter-day Saint.  He believes in giving loyalty and respect to political and religious authority; but at the same time, as a child of God endowed with free agency and the Holy Ghost, he senses his responsiblility to be a thoughtful and whole-souled disciple of Jesus Christ.  he will follow those who have earned the right to be his leaders.  And he will follow them with understanding and conviction, not with blindness or indifference.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 27)

People who accept the truth simply on the authority of others are prone to shift full responsibility to such authority for their own thought and behavior...In religion some people prefer to follow blindly their leaders, who they believe will guarantee their salvation.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 27)

One gains knowledge in four ways: (1) by accepting it on authority of someone else, (2) by thinking, (3) by experiencing, (4) and by feeling which may be called intuition, mysticism, inspiration, or revelation.*

In philosophical language, the classis ways of approaching reality are authority, rationalism, empiricism, and mysticism.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 24)

The search for knowledge is a great adventure consistent with man's need as a child of the great Creator to be creative.  The quest for knowledge, the activity of learning, is as satisfying to the mind as is the final discovery.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 21)

If one of our Elders is capable of giving us a lecture upon any of the sciences, let it be delivered in the spirit of meekness--in the spirit of the holy Gospel.  If, on the Sabbath day, when we are assembled here to worship the Lord, one of the Elders should be prompted to give us a lecture on any branch of education with which he is acquainted, is it outside the pale of our religion?  I think not...Or if an Elder shall give us a lecture upon astronomy, chemistry, or geology, our religion embraces it all.  It matters not what hte subject be, if it tends to improve the mind, exalt the feelings, and enlarge the capacity.  The truth that is in all the arts and sciences forms a part of our religion.

-Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses (1:334)

"Mormonism" so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity.  No matter who has it.  If the infidel has got truth it belongs to "Mormonism."  The truth and sound doctrine possessed by the sectarian world, and they have a great deal, all belongs to this Church.  As for their morality, many of them are morally, just as good as we are.  All that is good, lovely, and praiseworthy belongs to this Church and Kingdom.  "Mormonism" includes all truth. There is no truth but what belongs to the Gospel.

-Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses (11-375)

Life is a single dwelling, not a duplex nor an apartment house.  One cannot pursue academic learning six days a week and religion the seventh, keeping them neatly tucked away from each other in separate compartments.  The human mind, like the body, seeks to maintain an equilibrium, a functioning of all parts in a harmonious whole.  Man craves wholeness and calls things wholesome which contribute to this ideal.  Therefore, religion must make peace with a man's total life-experience if it is to retain a wholesome place in his living and thinking.  Religion is not something apart from life; it is an integral part of human relations, moral aspiration, and everyday life and thought.

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 8)

The years of college may be compared to a motor trip across a large continent.  While "riding" the student gets a sample of the land's extremes in temperature and elevation, the differences in its soil and vegetation; and with each mile traveled he gets an idea of its immensity; but he doesn't see and feel everything.

But even if he misses many of the details along the highway itself, hemay consider the journey a success if he has obtained an idea of the continent's worth-while features, if he knows what areas he would like to explore later, a nd perhaps the particular place where he would like to make his home.  It is not a success if he thinks, when the trip is over, that he knows the country; or if he takes a side road and spends so much time exploring that he can't finish the big trip.  Nor is it a success if he drives so fast that he meets no people, sees nothing but gray pavement and the cars he passes, and gets an over-simple picture of what the country is like. 

-Lowell L. Bennion, Religion and the Pursuit of Truth (pg. 6)

My religious tenets operate at two distinct levels: that of literal truth and that of metaphorical truth.  I believe that God, Christ, and the Church are literally "true," yet I do not have direct access to these things in the ordinary sense of the term.  Rather, I experience them intuitively, spiritually, "through a glass darkly."  I know, however, that they are true metaphorically, for they function sucessfully in my everyday life.  This combination of believing ad knowing (both of which are relative terms) amounts to a trust that I call my faith.  I readily acknowledge that my faith is a faith; it is not a perfect knowledge.  Indeed, I am content that it is so.  The informed trust that comes with faith can, if it is genuine and well placed, produce a strength and a goodness that could not grow from literal, absolute knowledge.  An earthly example is the power and peace that is a byproduct of a friendship or marriage based on love and trust (faith) rather than on a constant, empiricle, and absolute knowledge that theoretically would verify that the friend or spouse is being "true."  Although there are in fact such things as unworthy friends or disloyal spouces, it is nevertheless impossible to build a healthy friendship or marriage without a deep and lively faith.
-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 257) A Thoughtful Faith

I do not believe the crucial issue is finally, "Will I be sitting in the correct pew when the archangel sounds his trump?"  Rather, I believe God sent me to earth to respond freely, with faith, to the conditions of a sometimes dark and difficult world.  My choices here can either promote ("save") or inhibit ("damn") my progress and well-being.  I believe my highest response to these conditions is to learn something about myself, to learn to love blindly, to serve my fellow beings, to acquire a kind of wisdom that is apparently best communicated through human experience.  I feel as though I am invited by a spirit above me to follow what light I am given, to live productively and authentically, with honor and vigor.

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 256) A Thoughtful Faith

I have known people who have rejected the Church because they have overestimated its nature and purpose, and have grown disappointed when the Church did not satisfy the functions that they have privately imposed on it.  Is it possible to overestimate the Church if it truly derives from God?  In my judgement, yes.  Some have misunderstood the Church as an end to be served for its own sake, which is in essence a kind of idolatry.  The Church exists, instead as an instrument through which together we may serve God and His children.  I have heard others express their disappointment by making the unremarkable ovservation that, "I don't get anything out of it anymore."  Though it is certain that most Latter-day Saints could strive more earnestly to reach for the profundities that are accessible through the gospel, it seems to me that such comments as "I don't get anything out of it anymore" in part reflect a loss of vision on the part of the speaker.  When Church members assemble, the idea is at least as much to give as to "get," to contribute as to be spoon fed.

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 252) A Thoughtful Faith

None of this, of course, is a threat to the unique role and stature of The Church of Jesus Christ.  It simply reinforces the obvious notion that God loves all people and influences them through many channels.  I have come to see that as a Latter-day Saint I can allow the term "chosen people" to have no room for an elitest tinge.  The deepest meaning of this difficult term is revealed for me in the image of the Christ who washed the feet of His deciples.  Perhpas we are a people chosen to serve people.

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 250) A Thoughtful Faith

Given my faith in Christ, I nevertheless could live more or less authentically with or without an organized church.  This, I think, is self-evident.  Joseph Smith's own family for long periods chose to remain nondenominational Christians.  Yet I have come to believe that for most of the people most of th time (perhaps all of the people most of the time) it is better to belong than not to belong to an organized (Christian) church.

I recognize that this is a large assertion, for the institutionalization of anything brings with it certain potential liabilities, because of the very nature of institutions.  In any organized chruch, for example, (just as in any secular organization) there may develop unseemly pressures to conform to a misconceived "orthodoxy."  There may develop an unspoken etiquette, implying that one may rarely talk in public about what he actually feels or thinks, but only about what he ought to feel or think--therby straining "authenticity."  as in any organization, unecessary and unhelpfull restrictions of autonomy may accrue.  Ther may be complacency or exasperating bureaucratic entanglements.  Morover, formal, institutionalized religion may sometimes function as an ironic, distracting buffer between God and His worshippers; the focus may unconciously shift from "servicng god and man" to "doing things correctly."  One will inevitably witness occasional instances of pettiness, unfairness, distateful personalities--"people problems."  Since such difficulties will exist in any large organization that involves human beings, one may therefore be tempted at times to live one's religion apart from other persons, int he peace of solitude.

The profound error in this course of action is demonstrated by the Savior's example.  Jesus did not choose to remain above and apart from human beings.  Instead, He condescended to our condition in order to heal, teach, and serve us.  Indeed, it was precisely in the midst of our imperfections that He found opportunity to accomplish His redeeming work.

With modest effort, after all, one can largely avoid letting a church become a buffer between oneself and God.  And with a little stregnth of character one need only believe what he or she believes.  Moreover, some of the "problems" of religious organizations are themselves ultimately a part of the answer to my central question--"How do I live with meaning and authenticity?"  Indeed, "people problems," not sanitized isolation, are precisely what genuine disciples of Jesus are invited to engage.  Anyone (including a robot) and unthinkingly conform, and anone (including a dog) can rebel and withdraw. The more difficult and worthy accomplishment lies in the Way of Jesus--in meek, but courageous service, in constructive interaction with God's children.

In extended isolation from the worshipping community one is especially susceptible to conceit, to forgetting how much one may learn from other human beings, whatever their station.  Apart from the congregation, one has radically fewer opportunities to serve.  One's ability to love becomes abstract, remote from the life-giving power constricted, academic, emasculated.  In this isolation one is in danger of losing a sharp awareness of collective sin, of group power, and of the resources of community ritual.  It is clear that love, service, and the acquisition of knowledge are better worked out in regular contact with a community to which one feels responsible than in comfortable, unadulterated solitude.

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 247-249) A Thoughtful Faith

Among the religious philosophies of the world, I can discover no completely universal answer to my question, "How am I to live with meaning and authenticity?"  However, the three responses that seem to come nearest are these: human beings are invited to love, to render service to their fellows, and to pursue the acquisition of knowledge...These three answers to my question resonate within; they "feel" true instinctively, like worthy answers.  Numerous prophetic figures have given varying emphases to these goals and have themselves pursued them with varying degrees of success.

Now through all of the conflicting claims and bewildering confusion on the planet earth, one knwn thing completely captures my soul and imagination as an actual, historical incarnation of "meaningful and authentic existence"--and that "thing" is Christ.

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 244-245) A Thoughtful Faith

At least officially, science is an empirical method.  Its empricism, though essential in its place, restricts itself by definition to ways of knowing that are infinitely too crude to adequately address the question, "How do I live with meaning and authenticity?"  The findings of science must inform but can never give or be the final answer.  For me, as for the Modernist leader Harry Fosdick earlier in thei century, it is something of an embarrassment that our society has "sometimes gotten so low that we talked as though thte highest compliment that could be paid to God was that a few scientists believed in Him."

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 244) A Thoughtful Faith

Whatever I am to make of this life, all human beings are in it together.  other persons and toher cultures must be valued by God; surely they matter no less than I.  Yet their beliefs and values in some ways conflict with mine.  I must deal with this.  I have a great bias toward my own local culture, but I become increasingly suspicious of it as I make contact with the wider world.  I grow wary of such terms as "chosen people."  I begin to understand that genuine truth may have many vantages.  My home town is less unique in God's eyes than I had assumed.  I learn and assimilate relativism.

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 243) A Thoughtful Faith

My confession is to acknowledge my awareness of the many linguistic, historical, and theological difficulties that arise as one attempts to analyze such documents as the Book of Abraham and the Book of Mormon, and also as one tries to take account of the Mormon (or any faith's) past.  Both my professional study and my continuing attempts to conform my private life to the requirements of the scriptures have led me to this awareness.  I have reconciled many of these difficulties, not reconciled others, and have suspended judgment on certain of them.  Most are explicable if one approaches them not from the perpective that the church is essentially divine, marred only by the weakness of human administrators, but rather that the Church on earth consists entirely of human beings (with all their limitations) who are trying to respond to the divine with which they have been touched.  The distinction is crucial, for the second conception is an inversion of the first.

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 239) A Thoughtful Faith

I think it is a mistake to attempt to elevate religion by disparaging reason.  I believe my mind to be more a friend than a foe to my spirit, and that God gave me my intellect in the same sense that He gave me my soul.  I believe that "spirit" and "faith" and "revelation" and "reason" can be related, compatible terms.  Joseph Smith implied as much when he said that his revelatory experiences often consisted of receiving "sudden strokes of ideas" from the Spirit and that the "Holy Ghost has no other effect than pure intelligence."  Although it is of course possible to err by intellectual arrogance or to misunderstand rationality as the only important kind of itelligence, I do not believe that it is possible to think too well.  Even if one feels himself to have recieved inspiration, a mature faith ought to be a thoughtful faith.

-Philip L. Barlow, "The Uniquely True Church" (pg 239) A Thoughtful Faith

Good theology forces detours that divert us from our stated goals and prompt us to visit places and include people that would otherwise be left aside.  The measure of this strength is charity.  Theological detours are worth only as much charity as they are able to show.  They are worth only as many waylaid lives and lost objects as they are able to embrace...Charity is a willingness to have our lives made difficult by people we did not have to help, objects we did not have to save, thoughts we did not have to think.

-Adam S. Miller, Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays on Mormon Theology (pgs. xiv-xv)

Although we see evidence that God's love and power have frequently broken in upon the ordinary course of human affairs, our caution in declaring this is reinforced by our justifiable disapproval of chroniclers who take the easy way out and use divine miracles as a short-circuit of a causal explanation that is obviously, or a least defensibly, naturalistic. We must not use history as a storehouse from which deceptively simple moral lessons may be drawn at random.


-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 237)

[Wendell] Ashton said a manuscript could pass muster with the [correlation] committee and still not be well written or stimulating or instructive or thought-provoking or accomplish any of hte goals set up the the auxiliaries for their manuals.  In short, something could pass the Correlation Committee and still be dull; in fact, if it was dull it usually passed with speed and high praise.  I had observed the same thing.


-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 163)

Obviously there would be differences of opinion among the general authorities on questions of administration and policy...From my point of view, that inspired men and women might maneuver to have their influence felt illustrated how human agents interact in their efforts to do god's work.  Not every statement or act of church leaders is inspired, since they disagree among themselves.  Not every conclusion is right, since they occasionally backtrack.  that the Lord is in charge does not mean that he inspires or approves everything done in the church.  That he is in charge does mean that our leaders will get a lot more right than wrong.  In the meantime, a follower like me, trying to do a job under conflicting instructions or pressures, was like a mouse crossing the floor where elephants are dancing.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 144)

After one dispute [with Edwin Wooley], [Brigham]Young remarked caustically: "Well, I suppose now you are going to go off and apostatize."
"No I won't," retorted Wooley.  "If this were your church I might, but it's jus as much mine as it is yours."

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 135)

Half our troubles arise from the anticipation of evils that never take place, and the dangers that never reach us.

Brigham Young (letter to Clara Young, Jan. 24, 1876)

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 118)

"Every human being will find that his happiness very greatly depends upon the work he does, and the doing of it well.  Whoever wastes his life in idleness, either because he need not work in order to live, or because he will not live to work, will be a wretched creature, and at the close of a listless existence, will regret the loss of precious gifts and the neglect of great opportunities."

Brigham Young (letter to Willard Young, Nov. 11, 1875)

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 118)

In 1936 Spencer [Kimball] was elected district governor of Rotary, and the district voted to pay his travel expenses to the international convention in Nice, France.  The kimballs used some of their savings to pay Camilla's way...Each vonvention meal in Nice features goblets of wine from the principal departments of France.  Spencer routinely passed these up--after all, he was a stake president.  But Camilla had never tasted wine, was curious and dared to try a sip. this even was mentioned in a draft of Spencer W. Kimball: Twelfth President of the Church.  when she read the manuscript Camilla said that although she had no objection to being considered a drinker Spencer appeared more self-righteous than was the case.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 108)

I learned from a friend among the general authorities that I had been approved as president of the Italian mission when it was opened in 1967, but just prior to my call an article written by J.D. Williams that was regarded as critical of Ezra Taft Benson had appeared in Dialogue.   Because of my connection with Dialogue, my name was withdrawn.  Although I had nothing to do with the approval of the article, I lost this opportunity of preaching the gospel in italy in Italian.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 89)

[Howard W. Hunter] said that he felt the church was mature enough that our history would be honest.  our faith should not overpower our collective memories and documented experiences.  he did not believe in suppressing information, hiding documents, or concealing or withholding minutes for "screening."  He thought we should publish the documents of our history.  Why should we withhold things that are a part of our history?  He thought it in our best interest to encourage scholars--to help and cooperate with them in doing honest research.  Nevertheless, Hunter counseled me to keep in mind that church members reverenced leaders and their policies.  To investigate too closely the private lives of leaders and the circumstances that led to their decisions might remove some of hte aura that sanctified church policies and procedures.  If hte daylight of historical research should shine too brightly upon the prophets and their policies, he cautioned, it might devitalize the charisma that dedicated leadership inspires.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 84)

The problem is that facts never speak for themselves.  Chronicles and testimonies and stories mean different things to different people.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 64)

There is danger in being open-minded to error; there is also a danger in being so zealous in protecting the Saints from new views that free inquiry is stifled.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 64)

The church's history may not have been unblemished, but it has survived and flouished because its members understand that any "error" is a minor brush stroke in a very large painting.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 64)

Scholars need not relinquish their faith to be intellectually respectable, nor relinquish their intelligence to be faithful.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 62)

Many of the brethren chew tobacco, and I have advised them to be modest about it.  Do not take out a whole plug of tobacco in meeting before the eyes of the congregation, and cut off a long slice and put it in your mouth, to the annoyance of everybody around.  Do not glory in this disgraceful practice.  I you must use tobacco, put a small portion in your mouth when no person sees you, and be careful that no one sees you chew it.  I do not charge you with sin.  you have the "Word of Wisdom."  Read it.  Some say, "Oh, as I do in private, so I do in public, and I am not ashamed of it."  it is, at least, disgraceful....Some men will go into a clean and beautifully-furnished parlour with tobacco in their mouths, and feel, "I ask no odds."  I would advise such men to be more modest, and not spit upon the carpets and furniture, but step to the door, and be careful not to let any person see you spit; or, what is better, omit chewing until you have an opportunity to do so without offending....We request all addicted to this practice, to omit it while in their houses [the tabernacle].  Elders of Israel, if you must chew tobacco, omit it while in meeting, and when you leave, you can take a double portion, if you wish to.

-Brigham Young (sermon, Mar. 10, 1861 in Journal of Discourses 8:361-362; sermon of May 5th, 1870, Deseret News Weekly, May 11, 1870)

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 58)

A good friend related an experience with McKay at a reception.  In a moment of courage, the hostess served rum cake.  All the guests hesitated, watching to see what McKay would do.  he smacked his lips and began to eat.  One guest gushed, "But President McKay, don't you know that is rum cake?"  McKay smiled and reminded the guest that the Word of Wisdom forbade drinking alcohol, not eating it.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 42)

A rational foundation may not always lead to belief, but it helped me feel confident that I was on the right path. In my experience, the buildup of intellectuality is consistent with the strenghtening of fiath and indeed helps produce a deeper, more enduring testimony.  Philosophy, I found, provided a climate in which belief could flourish, and my attachment to Mormonism was reinforced.
-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 25)

"My Mormon upbringing...taught me that while the life of the mind was exciting and virtuous, ti also involved responsibilities--there were limits.  Building on the example of my mentors, I came to believe that we ought to make and advance knowledge by research and writing; we ought to transmit knowledge and skills by teaching and lecturing; and we ought to help others lead ethical, fulfilling lives by talks, counseling, and good example.  As we devote ourselves heart and soul to solving particular intellectual and social problems, we must also keep our sights open to the large (not always answerable) questions of human and divine meaning and purpose.  We must be lucid and humane, honest and helpful, devoted to our scholarly callings and loyal to our faith and community. We must cultivate both social skills and spiritual virtues--humility, faith, courage, and good will.  Humility would dispose us to learn from others, faith in the gospel to retain our moorings, courage to open our beliefs to critical examination and change, and good will to be fair and just in considering the people and practices that come before us--these virtues were taught by the scriptures, by Joseph smith, by modern revelation, and by the great philosophers; they would help us in our spiritual quest for exaltation.  Above all, we ought to eschew the rootless life not tied to divine instruction, healthy tradition, and robust piety."

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 23-24)

"Once when I was taking the elevator at the south entrance to the Church Administration Building to the third floor, Joseph Fielding Smith entered.  he chuckled and asked me if I knew that King David was constipated.  I was shocked but mumbled that I had no idea. He explained that in the Book of Kings it says that King David sat on his throne for forty years and was not moved."

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 16)

Humor and forthrightness helped early Latter-day Saints disponse of contradictions, conflicts, and frustrations in a socially healthy manner.  There was, for them, no conflict between piety and moderate levity, reverence and straightforward candidness.  The documents of church history are replete with missionary stories, occasional pranks, and the betowal of nicknames as a means of deflating pretension, hypocrisy, vanity, and excessive pride.  They also contain celebrations of the goodness of God, the complexity of the world he created and the sublimity of the life he gives.  The early Saints' sense of balance between candid humor and reverence did not undermine their faith, but instead gave them a strong sense of group identity and illustrated the strengths of their movement.  Devotion to their cause allowed such balance.  More generally, it helped them develop the evolving self-respect that one would expect of a community of God's chose people.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 8)

"It is great to be great, but it's greater to be human."

-Will Rogers

Adventures of a Church Historian, Leonard J. Arrington (pg. 7)

I clearly saw and understood, by the spirit of revelation manifested in me, that if I was to harbor a thought in my heart that Joseph could be wron in anything, I would begin to lose confidence in him, and that feeling would grow...until at last I would have the same lack of confidence in hes being hte mouthpiece for the Almighty.  Though I admitted in my feelings and knew all the time that Jospeh was a human being and subject to err, still it was none of my business to look after his faults...He was called of God; God dictated [to] him, and if He had a mind to leave him to himself and let him commit an error, that was no business of mine....Though he had his weaknesses he was all that any people coul drequire a true prophet to be.

-Brigham Young (Journal of Discourses 4:297)

Adventures of a Church Historian, Leonard J. Arrington (pg. 4)

I saw Joseph Smith the Prophet do things which I did not approve of; and yet...I thanked God that He would put upon a man who had these imperfections the power and authority which He placed upon him...for I knew I myself had weakness and I thought there was a chance for me.  These same weaknesses...I knew were in Heber C. Kimball, but my knowing this did not impair them in my estimation.  I thanked God I saw these imperfections.

-Lorenzo Snow (as quoted in the diary of George Q. Cannon, Jan. 7, 1898, Archives Division, Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)

Adventures of a Church Historian, Leonard J. Arrington (pg. 4)

"No more pretending for him! He was completely and openly a mess.  Meanwhile the rest of us go on trying to fool each other."

-Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son (pg. 118)

"When I realized how long I'd been out and how close I'd come to leaving it forever, our little home seemed to glitter like cheap jewelry. I was overjoyed not to be dead.  Generally the closest I ever came to wondering about the meaning of it all was to consider that I must be the victim of a joke.  There was no touching the hem of mystery, no little occasion when any of us thought--well, speaking for myself only, I suppose--that our lungs were filled with light, or anything like that.  I had a moment's glory that night, though.  I was certain I was here in this world because I couldn't tolerate any other place."

-Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son (pg. 34)

"He'd wasted his entire life.  Such people were very dear to those of us who'd only wasted a few years."

-Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son (pg. 31)

"What the hell is his problem?" Richard asked.
"It doesn't matter what his problem is, until he's fully understood it himself," the man said.

-Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son (pg. 20)

"His blood bubbled out of his mouth with every breath.  He wouldn't be taking many more.  I knew that, but he didn't, and therefore I looked down into the great pity of a persons's life on this earth  I don't mean that we all end up dead, that's not the pity.  I mean that he couldn't tell me what he was dreaming, and I couldn't tell him what was real."

-Denis Johnson, Jesus' Son (pg. 8)

There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world's mortal insufficiency to us."

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 245)

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 243)

Love is holy because it is like grace--the worthiness of its object is never really what matters.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 209)

"There is that scattereth, and increaseth yet more, and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to want."

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 198)

"For who among men knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man, which is in him?" In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a serparate language in each of us, also a serparate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful an what is acceptable--which I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live.

The thoughtlessness of any individual, when it is seen to be in service to the mindfulness of the Lord, cannot justify anger.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 194)

There are two insidious nothions, from the point of view of Christianity in the modern world. (No doubt ther eare more than two, but the others will have to wait.) One is that religion and religious experience are illusions of some sort (Feuerbach, Freud, etc.), and the other is that religion itself is real, but your belief that you participate in it is an illusion. I think the second of these is the more insidious, because it is religious experience above all that authenticates religion, for the purposes of the individual believer.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 145)

How do you tell a scribe from a prophet, which is what he clearly takes himself to be? The prophets love the people they chastise, a thing this writer does not appear to me to do.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 142)

I heard a man say once that Christians worship sorrow. That is by no means true. But we do believe there is a sacred mystery in it, it's fair to say that...I believe there is a dignity in sorrow simply because it is God's good pleasure that there should be. He is forever raising up those who are brought low. This does not meant hat it is ever right to cause suffering or to seek it out when it can be avoided, and serves no good, practicle purpose. To value suffering in itself can be dangerous and strange, so I want to be very clear about this. It means simply that God takes the side of sufferers against thos who afflict them.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 137)

When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?...each of us is an actor on a stage and God is the audience. That metaphor has always interested me, because it makes us artists ofour behavior, and the reaction of God to usm ight be thought of as aesthetic rather than morally judgemental in the ordinary sense. How well do we understand our role? Which how much assurance do we perform it?

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 124)

That is how life goes--we send our children into the wilderness. Some of them on the day they are born, it seems, for all the help we can give them. Some of them seem to be a kind of wildnerness unto themselves. But there must be angels there, too, and springs of water. Even that wilderness, the very habitation of jackals, is the Lord's. I need to bear this in mind.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 119)

I have always liked the phrase "nursing a grudge," because many people are tender of hteir resentments, as of the thing nearest their hearts.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 117)

The history of the church is very complex, very mingled. I want you to know how aware I am of that fact. These days there are so many people who think loyalty to religion is benighted, if it is not worse than benighted. I am aware of that, and I know the charges that can be brought against the churches are powerful. And I know, too, that my own experience of the church has been, in many senses, sheltered and parochial. In every sense, unless it really is a universal and transcendent life, unless the bread is the bread and the cup is the cup everywhere, in all circumstances, and it is a time with the Lord in Gethsemane that comes for everyone, as I deeply believe...It all means more than I can tell you, so you must not judge what I know by what I find words for....I hope you will put yourself in the way of the gift.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 114)

When things are taking their ordinary course, it is hard to remember what matters. There are so many things you would never think to tell anyone. And I believe they may be the things that mean the most to you, and that even your own child would have to know in order to know you well at all.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 102)

I know you will be and I hope you are an excellent man, and I will love you absolutely if you are not.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 73)

Memory can make a thing seem to have been much more than it was. But I know she did look right into my eyes. That is something. And I'm glad I knew it at the time, because now, in my present situation, now that I am about to leave this world, I realize ther eis nothing more astonishing than a human face...It has something to do with incarnation. You feel your obligation to a child when you have seen it and held it. Any human face is a claim on you, because you can't help but understand the singularity of it, the courage and loneliness of it. But his is the truest of the face of an infant. I consider that to be one kind of vision, as mystical as any.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 66)

One lapse of judgement can quickly create a situation in which only foolish choices are possible.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 60)

As I was walking up to the church this morning, I passed that row of big oaks by the war memorial...and I thought of another morning, fall a year or two ago, when they were dropping their acorns thick as hail almost. There was all sorts of thrashing in the leaves and there were acorns hitting hte pavement so hard they'd fly past my head. All this in the dark, of course. I remember a slice of moon, no more than that. It was a very clear night, or morning, very still, and then there was such enegy in the things transpiring among those trees, like a storm, like travail. I stood there a little out of range, and I thought, It is all still new to me. I have lived my life on the prairie and a line of oak trees can still astonish me.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 56-57)

A good sermon is one side of a passionate conversation. It has to be heard in that way. There are three parties to it, of course, but so are there even to the most private thought--the self that yeilds the thought, the self that acknowledges and in some way responds to the thought, and the Lord. That is a remarkable thing to consider.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 45)

It seemes to me some people just go around looking to get their faith unsettled. That has been the fashion for the last hundred years or so."

...Then just six months later I baptized her. And I felt like asking her, "What have I done? What does it mean?" That was a question that came to me often, not because I felt less than certain I had done something that did mean something, but because no matter how much I thought and read and prayed, I felt outside the mystery of it.

Every prayer seemed long to me at that age, and I was truly bone tired. I tried to keep my eyes closed, but after a while i had to look around a little. And this is something I remember very well. At first I thought I saw the sun setting in the east; I knew where east was, because the sun was just over the horizon when we got there that morning. Then I realized that what I saw was a full moon rising just as the sun was going down. Each of them was standing on its edge, with the most wonderful light between them. It seemed as if you could touch it, as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or as if there were palpable currents of light passing back and forth, or as if there were great taut skeins of light suspended between them. I wanted my father to see it, but I knew I'd have to startle him out of his prayer, and I wanted to do it the best way, so I took his hand and kissed it. And then I said, "look at the moon." and he did. We just stood there until the sun was down and the moon was up. They seemed to float on the horizon for a quite a long time, I suppose because they were both so bright you couldn't get a clear look at them. And that grave, and my father and I, were exactly between them, which seemed amazing to me at the time, since I hadn't given much thought to the nature of the horizon.

My father said, "I would never have thought this place could be beautiful. I'm glad to know that."

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 14-15)

Well, see and see but do not perceive, hear and hear but do not understand, as the Lord says. I can't claim to understand that saying, as many times as I've heard it, and even preached on it. It simply states a deeply mysterious fact. You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 7)

A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine. Above all, mind what you say. "Behold how much wood is kindled by how small a fire, and the tongue is a fire." --that's the truth.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 6)

It is an amazing thing to watch people laugh, the way it sort of takes them over. Sometimes they really do struggle with it. I see that in church often enough. So I wonder what it is and where it comes from, and I wonder what it expends out of your system, so that you have to do it till you're done, like crying in a way, I suppose, except that laughter is much more easily spent.

-Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (pg. 5)

What are we to do then about what seem increasing divisions in the church centered around the efforts of some Mormons to join in the multicultural and feminist revolution? One frequent response is to quote Christ's command, "I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye ar not mine" (D&C 38:27), as a way of condemning those whose otherness and interest in diversity seem to bring division. I don't believe, however, that Christ means "Be all alike in the Church or I will not accept you," but rather "Be like me by accepting each other in the Church, even if you're not all alike." He is asking us to be one in our acceptace of diversity, not as a denial of diversity.

As evidence for this crucial interpretation, I offer the following: Just before making that command, Christ pleads, "Let every man esteem his brother as himself." He then retells a story of a man who has twelve sons and who claims to be no respecter of persons, a just man, but nevertheless, "saith unto the one son: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there (D&C38:25-26)...Finally, Christ concludes, "This I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you be one." Clearly, to be like Christ rather than the man in the parable, we need to learn to love unconditionally and treat equally all the members of our church and human families, no matter how different they are.

-Eugene England, Making Peace (pg. 190-191).

"There is no such joy in the tavern as upon the road thereto."

-Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (pg. 41)

"They were in good spirits, scrubbed and combed, clean shirts all. Each foreseeing anight of drink, perhaps of love. How many youths have come home cold and dead from just such nights and just such plans."

-Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (pg. 38)

The way of the transgressor is hard. God made this world, but he didn't make it to suit everybody, did he?

I don't believe he much had me in mind.

Aye, said the old man. but where does a man come by his notions. what world's he seen that he liked better?

I can think of better places and better ways.

Can ye make it be?

No.

No. It's a mystery. A man's at odds to know his mind cause his mind is aught he has to know it with. He can know his heart, but he don't want to. Rightly so. Best not to look in there.  It aint the heart of a creature that is bound in the way that God has set for it.  You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it. You believe that?

I don't know.

Believe it.

-Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (pg. 19)

"I know that small acts of valor may be all that is visible of great movement of courage within. For we are all the elect, each one of us, and we are embarked upon a journey to something unimaginable. We do not know what will be required of us, and we have nothing to sustain us but the counsel of our fathers."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 132)

"You said there were some things you couldn't deserve. Things so sweet or so precious or even just so common to all humanity that there was no deserving them they just were given and you couldnt question them whether they fell to you or to someone else you couldnt question them. Maybe that dead boy doesn't deserve to be buried with his family. But Ben does he have to? Does he have to?"

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 126)

"Where are the others? Where are the others. Oh I've had time in great abundance to reflect upon that terrible question. Because we cannot save ourselves unless we save all ourselves."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 113)

"Well, it wasn't the good Lord's plan that I ever heard of for men to be gone all hours of the day and night."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 45)

"I know nothing of God. But I know that something knows. Something knows or else that old man could not know. Something knows and will tell you. It will tell you when you stop pretending that you know."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 97)

"My experience is limited....I am no longer reduced by these mysteries but rather am one more among them."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 97)

"I know that evil exists. I think it is not selective but only opportunistic."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 97)

"Nothing is ever finally arrived at. The journeyman becomes a master when he masters the journeyman's trade. He becomes a master when he ceases to wish to be one."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 96)

"I'd pretend ignorance to get you to stay. If I thought you could be fooled. But only people with wants can be fooled and you have none."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 95)

"Trouble comes to a house it comes to visit everbody."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 71)

"The reason the stonemason's trade remains esoteric above all others is that the foundation and the hearth are the soul of human society and it is that soul that the false mason threatens."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 66)

"I'd read a great deal in the Old Testament before it occurred to me that it as among other things a handbook for revolutionaries. that what it extolls above all else is freedom. There is not historian and no archaelogist who has any conception of what stonework means. The Semitic god was a god of the common man and that is why he'll have no hewn stones to his altar. He'll have no hewing of stone because he'll have no slavery."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 65)

"All trades have their origin in the domestic and their corruption in the state."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 65)

"All honors are empty and none more than honorary masonry. Because there is nothing that will separate from the work itself. The work is everything, and whatever is learned is learned in the doing...And if it is true that laying stone can teach you reverence of God and tolerance of your neighbor and love for your family it is also true that this knowledge is instilled in you through the work and not through any contemplation of the work."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pgs. 64-65)

"I seen they was some things that folks couldnt lie about. The facts was too plain. And what a man was worth at his work was one of them things. It was just knowed to everbody from the lowest to the highest and they wasnt no several opinions about it."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 49)

"Stone aint so heavy as the wrath of a fool."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 48)

"Thinking's rare among all classes. But a laborer who thinks, well, his thought seems more likely to be tempered with humanity. He's more inclined to tolerance. He knows that what is valuable in life is life."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 38)

The rain falls upon the just
And also on the unjust fellas
But mostly it falls upon the just
Cause the unjust have the just's umbrellas

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 38)

"The arc of the moral universe is indeed long but it does bend toward justice."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 32)

"The man's labor that did the work is in the work. You caint make it go away. Even if it's paid for it's still there. If ownership lies in the benefit to a man then the mason owns all the work he does in this world and you caint put that claim aside nor qite it and it don't make no difference whose name is on the paper."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 30)

"They's lots of work in this world that aint never paid for. But the accounts gets balanced anyway. In the long run. A man that contracts for work and then dont pay for it, the world will reckon with him fore it's out. With the worker too. you live long enough and you'll se it. they's a ledger kept that hte pages dont never get old nor cumbly nor the ink dont never fade. If it don't balance then they aint no right in this world and if they aint then where did I hear of it at? Where did you? Only way it wont is if you start retribution on you own. You start retribution on you own you'll be on you own. That man up there aint goin to help you. Aint no use even to ask."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 29)

"The structure of the world is such as to favor the prosperity of men. without this belief nothing is possible. What we are at arms against are those philosophies that claim the fortuitous in mens' inventions. For we invent nothing but what god has put to hand."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 10)

"True masonry is not held together by cement but by gravity. That is to say, by the warp of the world. By the stuff of creation itself. The keystone that locks the arch is pressed in place by the thumb of God."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 10)

"A man that will work they's always hope for him."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 27)

"It take a pretty sorry daddy to be worse than no daddy at all."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 27)

"He has thought deeply about his trade and in this he's much out of the ordinary."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 8)

"Anything excellent is always rare."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 8)

"To the repentant thief upon the cross, the soft Jesus of the modern Bible holds out hope of Heaven: 'Today thou art with me in Paradise.' But in older translations, as Soen Roshi points out, there is no 'today,' no suggestion of the future. In the Russian translation, for example, the meaning is 'right here now.' Thus, Jesus declares, 'You are in Paradise right now'--How much more vital! There is no hope anywhere but in this moment, in the karmic terms laid down by one's own life."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 310)

"Someone once said that God offers man the choice between repose and truth; he cannot have both."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 303)

"GS remarked that this was one of the best trips he had ever made, 'tough enough so that we feel we have really accomplished something, but not so tough that it wiped us out entirely.'"

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 259)

"The purpose of meditation practice is not enlightenment; it is to pay attention even at unextraordinary times, to be of the present, nothing-but-the-present, to bear this mindfulness of now into each event of ordinary life."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 257)

"If the snow leopard should manifest itself, then I am ready to see the snow leopard. if not, then somehow (and I don't understand this instinct, even now) I am not ready to perceive it, in the same way that I am not ready to resolve my koan; and in the not-seeing, I am content. I think I must be disappointed, having come so far, and yet I do not feelt hat way. I am disappointed, and also, I am not disappointed. That the snow leopard is, that it is here, that its frosty eyes watch us from the mountain--that is enough."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.249)

"In another life--this isn't what I know, but how I feel--these mountains [the Himalayas] were my home; there is a rising of forgotten knowledge, like a spring from hidden aquifers under the earth. To glimpse one's own true nature is a kind of homegoing."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 239)

"Eternity is not remote, it is here beside us."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.233)

"The secret of the mountains is that the mountains simply exist, as I do myself: the mountains exist simply, which I do not. The mountains have no 'meaning,' they are meaning; the mountains are. The sun is round. I ring with life, and the mountains ring, and when I can hear it, thre is a ringing that we share. I understand all this, not in my mind but in my heart, knowing how meaningless it is to try to capture what cannot be expressed, knowing that mere words will remain when I read it all again, another day."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 218)

"You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself flows in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are evey one sole heirs as well as you."

-Thomas Traherne, Centuries of Meditation

quoted in Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 217)

"One of the four cardinal sins in the monastic order of the Buddha--after unchastity, theft, and killing--was laying claim to miraculous powers. it is related that Kakyamuni once dismissed as of small consequence a feat of levitation on the part of a disciple, and cried out in pity for a yogin by the river who had wasted twenty years of his human existence in learning how to walk on water, when the ferryman might have taken him across for a small coin."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 158)

"Something is listening, and I listen, too: who is it that intrudes here? Who is breathing? i picka fern to see its spores, cast it away, and am filled in that instant with misgiving: the great sins, so the Sherpas say, are to pick wild flowers and to threaten children. My voice murmurs its regret, a strange sound that deepens the intrusion. I look about me--who is it that spoke? and who is listening? Who is this ever-present 'I' that is not me?"

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.141)

"Fear comes when all the mysteries are laid open, when what we thought we wanted is attained. It is just at the moment of seeming fulfillment that we sense irrevocable betrayal, like a great wave rising silently behind us."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 138)

"Above is the glistening galaxy of childhood, now hidden in the Western world by air pollution and the glare of artificial light; for my children's children, the power, peace, and healing of the night will be obliterated."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 126)

"The absurdity of a life that may well end before one understands it does not relieve one of the duty (to that self which is inseperable from others) to live it through as bravely and as generously as possible."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.118)

"The mountains had been a nural field of activity where, playing onthe frontiers of life and death, we had found the freedom for which we were blindly groping and which was as necessary to us as breath."

This same mountaineer [Maurice Herzog], after nearly losing his life, wrote of "freedom" in a quite different way:

"I saw that it was better to be true than to be strong...I was saved and I had won my freedom. This freedom, which I shall never lose...has given me the rare joy of loving that which I used to despise. A new and splendid life has opened out before me."

-Maurice Herzog, Annapurna (1953)

quoted in Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pgs. 117)

"The sense of having one's life needs at hand, of traveling light, brings with it intense energy and exhilaration. Simplicity is the whole secret of well-being."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.117)

"The Eye with which I see God is the Eye with which God sees me."

-Meister Eckhardt

Quoted in Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.113)

"Meditation represents the foundation of the universe to which all returns, as in the stillness of the dead of night, the stillness between tides and winds, the stillness of the instant before Creation. In this 'void,' this dynamic state of rest, without impediments, lies ultimate reality, and here one's own true nature is reborn, in a return from what Buddhists speak of as 'great death.'"

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.94)

"This record of Adam and his posterity is the only scriptural account we have of the appearance of man upon the earth. But we have also a vast and ever-increasing volume of knowledge concerning man, his early habits and customs, his industries and works of art, his tools and implements, about which such scriptures as we have thus far received are entirely silent. Let us not try to wrest the scriptures in an attempt to explain away what we can not explain. The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a text-book of geology, archaeology, earth-science or man-science. Holy Scripture will endure, while the conceptions of men change with new discoveries. We do not show reverence for the scriptures when we misapply them through faulty interpretation."

-James E. Talmage, The Earth and Man, Aug. 9, 1931

"The oldest, that is to say the earliest, rocks thus far identified in land masses reveal the fossilized remains of once living organisms, plant and animal. The coal strata, upon which the world of industry so largely depends, are essentially but highly compressed and chemically changed vegetable substance. The whole series of chalk deposits and many of our deep-sea limestones contain the skeletal remains of animals. These lived and died, age after age, while the earth was yet unfit for human habitation."

-James E. Talmage, The Earth and Man, Aug. 9, 1931

"The statement made by Elder Smith that the existence of pre-adamites is not a doctrine of the Church is true. It is just as true that the statement 'there were not pre-adamites on the earth' is not a doctrine of the church. Neither side of the controversy has been accepted as a doctrine at all."

-Heber J. Grant diary, 25 Jan. 1931, quoted in The Search for Harmony (pg. 97)

"The gospel embraces all truth. Brigham Young especially emphasized the propriety of seeking all truth. The assumption that because a man understands something about the operation of the Universe, he will necessarily be less faithful is a gratuitous assumption contradicted by numberless examples. God, who understands all about the Universe, is apparently, not troubled by this knowledge. Some people drift when they study, but some people drift when they don't study. If the Church espouses the cause of ignorance, it will alienate more people than if it advises man to seek after truth, even at some risk."

-Henry Eyring, letter to N. Eldon Tanner, 19 Oct. 1967, quoted in The Search for Harmony (pg. 153)

"The evidence seems to me to point toward an age of the earth between 4 or 5 billion years and to the existence of pre-Adamic man. I don't think that it is reasonable to explain the observed geologic formations on the theory that they were moved from some other worlds. I have no difficulty reconciling myself to the idea of life before Adam and to a great age of the earth. Our scriptural accounts are brief and don't seem to me to rule out these possibilities. The scriptural emphasis is on God's dealings with Adam and his descendants and the treatment of pre-Adamic history is sketchy, no doubt for a good reason. It seems, to me, clear that the Lord used the Prophet Joseph to restore His gospel. This is the important thing to me. Just how he runs the world, I'm obliged to leave up to Him. All I can do is find out how he does it by every means available."

-Henry Eyring, letter to Rosemary Klutch, 27 Jan. 1971, quoted in The Search For Harmony (pg. 152).

"To live with a saint is not difficult, for a saint makes no comparisons, but saintlike aspiration presents problems."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.79)

"Whether joyful or dark, the drug vision can be astonishing, but eventually this vision will repeat itself, until even the magic show grows boring...Drugs can clear away the past, enhance the present; toward the inner garden, they can only point the way. Lacking the temper of ascetic discipline, the drug vision remains a sort of dream that cannot be brought over into daily life. Old mists may be banished, that is true, but the alien chemical agent forms another mist, maintaining the separation of the 'I' from true experience of the One."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 48)

"The one danger of the mystical search: there is no way back without doing oneself harm. Many paths appear, but once the way is taken, it must be followed to the end."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 46)

The fact that many a man who goes his own way ends in ruin means nothing...He must obey his own law, as if it were a daemon whispering to him of new and wonderful paths...There are not a few who are called awake by the summons of the voice, whereupon they are at once set apart from the others, feeling themselves confronted with a problem about which the others know nothing. In most cases it is impossible to explain to the others what has happened, for any understanding is walled off by impenetrable prejudices. "You are no different from anybody else," they will chorus, or, "there's no such thing," and even if there is such a thing, it is immediately branded as "morbid."...He is at once set apart and isolated,a s he has resolved to obey the law that commands him from within. "His own law!" everybody will cry. But he knows better: it is the law...The only meaningful life is a life that strives for the individual realization--absolute and unconditional--of its own particular law...To the extent that a man is untrue to the law of his being...he has failed to realize his life's meaning.

Carl Jung, Collected Works (Chapter 7)

Quoted by Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 33)

"One night in 1945, on a Navy vessel in Pacific storm, my relief on bow watch, seasick, failed to appear, and I was alone for eight hours in a maelstrom of wind and water, noise and iron; again and again, waves crashed across the deck, until water, air, and iron became one. Overwhelmed, exhausted, all thought and emotion beaten out of me, I lost my sense of self, the heartbeat I heard was the heart of the world, I breathed with the mighty risings and declines of earth, and this evanescence seemed less frightening than exalting. Afterward, there was pain of loss--loss of what, I wondered, understanding nothing."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg.43)

"Man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern."

William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Quoted by Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 42)

"The Universe itself is the scripture of Zen, for which religion is no more and no less than the apprehension of the infinite in every moment."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 35)

"Hast thou attuned thy being to humanity's great pain, O Candidate for Light?"

-Mahayana texts (Tibetan)

Quoted in Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 34)

"Service is rendered for its own sake--it is the task, not the employer that is served."

-Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 33)

"Sakyamuni [the Buddah] perceived that man's existence is inseperable from sorrow; that the cause of suffering is craving; that peace is attained by extinguishing craving; that this liberation may be brought about by following the Eight-fold Path: right attention to one's understanding, intentions, speech, and actions; right livelihood, effort, mindfulness; right concentration, by which is meant the unification of the self through sitting yoga."

Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard (pg. 18)

"All other creatures look down toward the earth, but man was given a face so that he might turn his eyes toward the stars and his gaze upon the sky."

-OVID, Metamorphoses

"That is at bottom the only courage that is demanded of us: to have courage for the most strange, the most singular and the most inexplicable that we may encounter. That mankind has in this sense been cowardly has done life endless harm; the experiences that are called 'visions,' the whole so-called 'spirit-world,' death, all those things that are so closely akin to us, have by daily parrying been so crowded out of life that the senses with which we could have grasped them are atrophied. To say nothing of God."

-Rainer Maria Rilke

True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.

-Ben Jonson

"When a trout rising to a fly gets hooked on a line and finds himself unable to swim about freely, he begins with a fight which results in struggles and splashes and sometimes an escape. Often, of course, the situation is too tough for him.

"In the same way the human begin struggles with his environment and with the hooks that catch him. Sometimes he masters his difficulties; sometimes they are too much for him. His struggles are all that the world sees and it naturally misunderstands them. It is hard for a free fish to understand what is happening to a hooked one."

-Karl A. Menninger