Of Course, Mysticism Is Very Hard To

When The Reformation Became Established, One Of The Things That Was A Question Between Catholicism And The Reformation Traditions Was Whether There Was A Hierarchy Of Being. If You Look At Thomas Aquinas, For Example, You Have Hierarchies Of Angels And All The Rest Of It, And Hierarchies Even Of Saints And Then Subsaints - People Who Aren't Quite There, That Sort Of Thing. The Reformation Rejected All Of That And Created A New Metaphysics, In Effect, That Is Not Hierarchical.

I Had Been Reading About [john] Calvin For Years And Had Been Studying The English Renaissance For Many More Years, And It Had Never Occurred To Me To Think Of Them Together. I Learned That Calvin Was The Most Widely Read Writer In England In Shakespeare's Lifetime. He Was Translated And Published In Many Editions.

This Is An Interesting Planet. It Deserves All The Attention You Can Give It.

I Am Interested In Scripture And Theology. This Is An Interest That I Can Assume I Would Share With A Pastor, So That Makes Me A Little Bit Prone To Use That Kind Of Character, Perhaps, Just At The Moment. Then There Is Also The Fact That, Having Been A Church Member For Many Years, I Am Very Aware Of How Much Pastors Enrich People's Experience, People For Whom They Are Significant. I Know That It's A Kind Of Custom Of American Literature And Culture To Slang Them. I Don't Think There Is Any Reason Why That Needs To Be Persisted In.

A Narrow Pond Would Form In The Orchard, Water Clear As Air Covering Grass And Black Leaves And Fallen Branches, All Around It Black Leaves And Drenched Grass And Fallen Branches, And On It, Slight As An Image In An Eye, Sky, Clouds, Trees, Our Hovering Faces And Our Cold Hands.