Bryan, welcome back. :)

I'm in the midst of diligently putting off a paper. Current means of procrastination is Reading Every Single Email I've Gotten Since July 2001, and here's something my friend sent me some time ago that's just absolutely beautiful. (I realize some of you have read it already, but anyway.)


And the priestess spoke again and said: Speak to us of Reason and Passion.
And he answered saying:
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be a peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that is may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgement and you appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one gues above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows- then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightening proclaim the majesty of the sky,- then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."

And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

- from Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

posted by Tae-Yeoun Keum   [7:42 PM]

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