In Religion, It Is Not The Sycophants

Mark Tobey Fills His Canvases With Elliptical, Calligraphic Lines, Beautiful Whirls That Seem At First Glance To Be Completely Abstract And To Come From Nowhere At All Except His Own Subjective Musing. But I Shall Never Forget How Struck I Was, On Visiting Tobey's Studio One Day, To See Strewn Around Books On Astronomy And Photographs Of The Milky Way. I Knew Then That Tobey Experiences The Movement Of The Stars And Solar Constellations As The External Pole Of His Encounter.

Now, I Believe In Life, And I Believe In The Joy Of Human Existence, But These Things Cannot Be Experienced Except As We Also Face The Despair, Also Face The Anxiety That Every Human Being Has To Face If He Lives With Any Creativity At All.

Anxiety Is Essential To The Human Condition. The Confrontation With Anxiety Can Relieve Us From Boredom, Sharpen The Sensitivity And Assure The Presence Of Tension That Is Necessary To Preserve Human Existence.

The Individual Human Is Still The Creature Who Can Wonder, Who Can Be Enchanted By A Sonata, Who Can Place Symbols Together To Make Poetry To Gladden Our Heart, Who Can View A Sunrise With A Sense Of Majesty And Awe.

People Only Change When It Becomes Too Dangerous To Stay The Way They Are.