A fifth-grade bully, a blossoming romance, a late-night crash
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Richard Williams is from Chapel Hill and is the author of Savarin.
There was no despair in these people. There was none of the grasping idealism about them which has characterized other groups pointing to change in our culture. There was only peace and a simple acceptance of the rightness of each moment spent in attunement with God.
To live by the heart alone is to impose no order on one’s world, to burn out in a frenzy. If one does not temper one’s experience with both logic and feeling, both discernment and love, then one is treading close to the edge of the abyss. The unquestioned heart is as extreme as the unquestioned mind.
In this lucid if somewhat topical treatment of the life of Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), Mary and Ellen Lukas have revealed an old truth: human consciousness is not easily changed but must be challenged by advanced thinkers whose lives are filled with trial, test, and controversy.
The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection The water has no mind to receive their image.
— Zenrin Kushu
I found in James Dickey not only these allegedly “Southern” themes but also something else — that universal struggle between the spirit and the flesh. However grotesque his imagination was, this man, I felt, had more to say about the matter than any other living poet.
What is best in the Journal is its singular beauty and clarity of vision. Singular because not just the quotes from the Buddhist and Hindu sources but the day-to-day description of people and events are sharply defined, moving, and loveable.
Poetry, like all the arts, has taken a turn toward the diffuse since World War 2. By diffuse, I mean the opposite of the exactness that went into the work of the masters, the pointedness of a strong sensibility.
It was a dismally beautiful afternoon. In fact, it was so beautiful that Samantha wondered if it would ever end. The trees were so green, the light green that only early spring can offer.