Robb’s Blog

As I was surveying the moon walking in her brightness, and taking her progress among the constellations, a thought arose in me, which I believe very often perplexes and disturbs men of serious and contemplative natures. David himself fell into it in that reflection; “When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that thou regardest him!” In the same manner, when I considered that infinite host of stars, or, to speak more philosophically, of suns, which were then shining upon me; with those innumerable sets of planets or worlds, which were moving round their respective suns; when I still enlarged the idea, and supposed another heaven of suns and worlds, rising still above this which we discovered; and these still enlightened by a superior firmament of luminaries, which are planted at so great a distance, that they may appear to the inhabitants of the former, as the stars do to us: in short, while I pursued this thought, I could not but reflect on that little insignificant figure which I myself bore amidst the immensity of God’s works.

– From “The English Reader; Or Pieces in Prose and Poetry Selected from the Best” By Lindley Murray

 

Melissa said this to me today:

“Daddy, when people die, do they turn into clouds?”

 

 

Who accepts nature’s flow becomes all-cherishing;

Being all-cherishing he becomes impartial;

Being impartial he becomes magnanimous;

Being magnanimous he becomes natural;

Being natural he becomes one with the Way;

Being one with the Way he becomes immortal:

Though his body will decay, the Way will not.

– From the “Tao Te Ching“

 

And it is clear that indications of this mysterious infinitude can be given more easily and adequately in a poem on a small theme, than in a poem on a large theme. A solitary flower may be made the means of expressing the infinite awe of the universe far more effectively than the most crowded drama. The fuller a picture or a poem is of positive life action and feeling, the less room is there left in our infinite minds for the strange, unconceived immensity beyond.

– From “The North British Review,” February - May 1858

 

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead … his eyes are closed.

– Albert Einstein

 

When you go out in the morning
To begin the work of the day,
Don’t neglect the little chances
You find along your way;
For in lifting another’s burden,
And speaking a word of cheer;
You will find your own cares lighter,
And easier for you to bear.

– From “Betty’s Poems” by Betty M. Grant

 

I should be only a vibration, - a motion invisible as of ether or of magnetism; though able sometimes to shape me a shadow-body, in the likeness of my former visible self, when I should wish to make apparition.

As air to the bird, as water to the fish, so would all substance be permeable to the essence of me. I should pass at will through the walls of my dwelling to swim in the long gold bath of a sunbeam, to thrill in the heart of a flower, to ride on the neck of a dragon-fly.

– From “Gleanings in Buddha Fields, Studies of Hands and Soul in the Far East” by Lafcadio Hearn