This at least seems to me
the main problem
for philosophers....How can we contrive to be at once
astonished at the
world and yet at home in it? How can this world
give us at once the
fascination of a strange town and the comfort and
honour of being our own
town?....We need this life of practical romance; the
combination of something
that is strange with something that is secure.
We need to view the
world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of
welcome. We
need to be happy in this wonderland without being once
merely comfortable.
--G. K. Chesterton
Healthy personality
involves a balance
between receptivity and manipulation, between wonder
and action....The
unity of the authentic life is plural; its wisdom
lies in understanding
the necesssity for the changing moments and seasons
of life....Wisdom comes,
usually with age, when a man can look back over his
years and realize that
there is an economy to the seasons of life. He
see that the times
of strife, suffering, and waiting which seemed so
difficult to endure were
as necessary to the formation of personality as the
times of love, joy,
and ecstasy. To love and accept the self as it
is, is to accept all
the moments that formed it.
--Sam Keen, Apology for
Wonder
(1969)
Ecclesiates: Chapter 3 (Verses 1
through 13)
For everything there is a
season, and a
time for every purpose under heaven:
A time to be born, And a
time to die;
A time to plant, And a time
to pluck up
that which is planted;
A time to kill, And a time
to heal;
A time to break down, And a
time to build
up;
A time to weep, And a time
to laugh;
A time to mourn, And a time
to dance;
A time to cast away stones,
And a time
to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a
time to refrain
from embracing;
A time to seek, And a time
to lose;
A time to keep, And a time
to cast away;
A time to tear, And a time
to sew;
A time to keep silence, And
a time to
speak;
A time to love, And a time
to hate;
A time for war, And a time
for peace.
What gain has the worker
from his toil?
I have seen the business God has given to the sons
of men to be busy with.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has
also set eternity
into man's mind, yet so that man can't find out what
God has done from
the beginning to the end. I know that there is
nothing better for them
than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as
they live. Also it is
God's gift to man that every one should eat and
drink, and take pleasure
in all his toil.
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