Grace Has A Grand Laughter In It.

Over My Life As A Teacher, Women Have Been Too Quiet. I'm Quiet Myself. I Don't Think I Said Three Words The Whole Of Graduate School.

I Wish I Could Leave You Certain Of The Images In My Mind, Because They Are So Beautiful That I Hate To Think They Will Be Extinguished When I Am. Well, But Again, This Life Has Its Own Mortal Loveliness. And Memory Is Not Strictly Mortal In Its Nature, Either. It Is A Strange Thing, After All, To Be Able To Return To A Moment, When It Can Hardly Be Said To Have Any Reality At All, Even In Its Passing. A Moment Is Such A Slight Thing. I Mean, That Its Abiding Is A Most Gracious Reprieve.

That Is To Say, I Pray For You. And There's An Intimacy In It. That's The Truth.

Theologians Talk About A Prevenient Grace That Precedes Grace Itself And Allows Us To Accept It. I Think There Must Also Be A Prevenient Courage That Allows Us To Be Brave - That Is, To Acknowledge That There Is More Beauty Than Our Eyes Can Bear, That Precious Things Have Been Put Into Our Hands And To Do Nothing To Honor Them Is To Do Great Harm. And Therefore, This Courage Allows Us, As The Old Men Said, To Make Ourselves Useful. It Allows Us To Be Generous, Which Is Another Way Of Saying Exactly The Same Thing.

To Think That Only Faultless People Are Worthwhile Seems Like An Incredible Exclusion Of Almost Everything Of Deep Value In The Human Saga. Sometimes I Can't Believe The Narrowness That Has Been Attributed To God In Terms Of What He Would Approve And Disapprove.