Alive in the mystery of kindness

We're not there anymore.  That was 40 years ago.



We're not there anymore either. That was 12 years ago.



We're not there anymore. That was 6 years ago.



We're not there anymore. That was this last Tuesday evening.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” (Albert Einstein, Living Philosophies)

"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness." (The Dalai Lama)

"... You a praying man, huh? What do you pray for? You pray for the world?" I never thought about praying for the world. I said, “I pray that I can be a kinder person.” (Bob Dylan, Chronices: Volume One -- from a conversation with "Sun Pie" near Raceland, west of New Orleans)

Double rainbow on a sunny day with Albert Einstein and Charles Simic

Inside my empty bottle I was constructing a lighthouse 

while all the others were making ships. 

(Charles Simic, poet -- b. 1938)

Three Trees / Alive Alive-O/ First Love

Listen to this mystical song:



“No, this trick won’t work…How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”
(Albert Einstein)

AM READING A BIOGRAPHY OF EINSTEIN

Beginning sometime in December or late November, I have been reading a recent biography of Albert Einstein, written by Walter Isaacson. I had previously seen the book in a bookstore and picked it up and glanced through it, drawn by the photo of Einstein on the cover. Later, a copy of the book showed up at a free lending library in my community. I took the book home, thinking that I would read it before I started school in January. Having only a primitive understanding of physics and mathematics, the extensive sections involving those disciplines are excruciatingly slow reading indeed. I am reading them anyway in hopes of learning something. I'm not recommending spending money on this biography but the book does have its moments.

Last night I skipped ahead, looking for a photograph of Elsa Einstein and found this at the beginning of the chapter titled "Einstein's God."

"At this point the host tried to silence him by invoking the fact that even Einstein harbored religious beliefs.

"It isn't possible!" the skeptical guest said, turning to Einstein to ask if he was, in fact, religious.

"Yes, you can call it that," Einstein replied calmly. "Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious."

(the photo is of a little "collage" which has rested at the side of my refrigerator, next to my stove, for the past 4-1/2 years.)