tyranny of workplace identity

“The Sabbath is a declaration of freedom from the tyranny of workplace identity placed on us in culture.” 

[Tim Keller]

soaked with the sense of exile

“Certainly there was an Eden on this very unhappy earth. We all long for it, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane, is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile’.”

[J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Ed. Humphrey Carpenter (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000), 110. Tolkien penned these words in a letter to his son, Christopher Tolkien, on January 30, 1945.]

not with the nature of number

"True, we can reckon with numbers -- but not with the nature of number."

[Martin Heidegger in "...Poetically Man Dwells..."]

full of his qualities is the face of the sky

"What is God? Unknown, yet
Full of his qualities is the
Face of the sky."

[Hölderlin]

kindness it is

"For kindness it is, that ever calls forth kindness."

[Sophocles in Ajax, verse 522)

a frivolous mooning and vaporizing into the unknown...or a part of literature

"Poetry is either rejected as a frivolous mooning and vaporizing into the unknown, and a flight into dreamland, or is counted as a part of literature. And the validity of literature is assessed by the latest prevailing standard. The prevailing standard, in turn, is made and controlled by the organs for making public civilized opinions."

[from "...Poetically Man Dwells..." by Martin Heidegger]

I graduated from St. John's. I'm sad. I don't want it to be over.

 the view from the library

the view from the library

the view from the library

the view from the library

I wonder how many hours I spent in this room.