A Letter Makes Ordinary Things Seem Important.

Generosity Is Also An Act Of Freedom, A Casting Off Of The Constraints Of Prudence And Self-interest.

The Locus Of The Human Mystery Is Perception Of This World. From It Proceeds Every Thought, Every Art.

It Was A Source Of Both Terror And Comfort To Me Then That I Often Seemed Invisible - Incompletely And Minimally Existent, In Fact. It Seemed To Me That I Made No Impact On The World, And That In Exchange I Was Privileged To Watch It Unawares.

If You Read Calvin, For Example, He Says, How Do We Know That We Are Godlike, In The Image Of God? Well, Look At How Brilliant We Are. Look How We Can Solve Problems Even Dreaming, Which I Think Is True, Which I've Done Myself. So Instead Of Having An Externalized Model Of Reality With An Objective Structure, It Has A Model Of Reality That Is Basically Continuously Renegotiated In Human Perception. I Think That View Of Things Is Pretty Pervasively Influential In Protestant Thought.

John Calvin's Theology Emphasizes The Sanctity Of Conscience, The Sanctity Of Companionate Marriage, And The Obligation Of Those In Power To Attend To The Well-being Of The People In General, Especially The Poor. Interestingly, For The Interpretation Of Hamlet, For Example, He Forbids Even The Thought Of Revenge. This Is Not The Calvin Of Myth, But When The Elizabethans Read Him There Was No Such Myth, Nor Would There Be Now, If He Were Read.