Flaker of Flints

I am being driven forward into an unknown land. The pass grows steeper, the air colder and sharper. A wind from my unknown goal stirs the strings of expectation. Still the question: Shall I ever get there? There where life resounds, a clear pure note in the silence.

What is interesting here is that Coleridge looks to his son, Hartley, to read the "eternal language" in a way that he cannot (as has been made clear earlier in the poem). For the first time, the question of hermeneutics raises itself—the poet may interpret nature, but who will give authority to his interpretation? The Romantics' models as poet-prophets, the Hebrew writing prophets and John Milton, were confirmed in their role by long acceptance, but who was to give this confirmation to the Romantics themselves?

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

...The knight of faith drains the deep sadness of life in infinite resignation, he knows the blessedness of infinity, he has felt the pain of renouncing everything, the most precious thing in the world, and yet the finite tastes just as good to him as to one who never knew anything higher, because his remaining in finitude would have no trace of a fearful, anxious routine, and yet he has this security that makes him delight in it as if finitude were the surest thing of all. And yet—and yet!—the whole earthly figure he presents is a new creation by virtue of the absurd. He is continually making the movement of infinity, but he does it with such precision and assurance that he continually gets finitude out of it, and no one ever suspects anything else...

I'm connected in a daze, Roam unconscious disengaged. In a simulated world I sustain. Swimming senseless through a void, Ease my appetite with noise. In a stimulated world Go insane. Shadow in a matrix, Searching for a light. Captive of the jungle, Hiding in the night. Break me free to live enchanted. Enchanted, Beyond control. Hide me, hide me. Hide me in your mystery. Break me free to live enchanted. Enchanted, Beyond control.

The single individual is higher than the universal.

...But for a few years he had been visited by the Muse (I know of no poet to whom this hackneyed metaphor is better applicable) and thenceforth was a haunted man; for anyone who has ever been visited by the Muse is thenceforth haunted....Sometimes, however, to be a ‘ruined man’ is itself a vocation...

The [Princes]. Events take place beyond our knowledge or control. Our lives are lived for us. We can only try to enslave others. But gradually, special perceptions are being developed. The idea of the “[Princes]” is beginning to form in some minds. We should enlist them into bands of perceivers to tour the labyrinth during their mysterious nocturnal appearances. The [Princes] have secret entrances, and they know disguises. But they give themselves away in minor ways. Too much glint of light in the eye. A wrong gesture. Too long and curious a glance. The [Princes] appease us with images. They give us books, concerts, galleries, shows, cinemas. Especially the cinemas. Through art they confuse us and blind us to our enslavement. Art adorns our prison walls, keeps us silent and diverted and indifferent.

The longest journey is the journey inwards. Of him who has chosen his destiny, who has started upon his quest for the source of his being (Is there a source?). He is still with you, but without relation, isolated in your feeling like one condemned to death or one whom imminent farewell prematurely dedicates to the loneliness which is the final lot of all. Between you and him is distance, uncertainty— care. He will see you withdrawing, further and further, hear your voices fading, fainter and fainter.

In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and exalted throne, the edges of his robe filling the temple. Winged creatures were stationed around him. Each had six wings: with two they veiled their faces, with two their feet, and with two they flew about. They shouted to each other, saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heavenly forces! All the earth is filled with God’s glory!” The doorframe shook at the sound of their shouting, and the house was filled with smoke. I said, “Mourn for me; I’m ruined! I’m a man with unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I’ve seen the king, the Lord of heavenly forces!” Then one of the winged creatures flew to me, holding a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips. Your guilt has departed, and your sin is removed.” Then I heard the Lord’s voice saying, “Whom should I send, and who will go for us?” I said, “I’m here

...God’s gift is not an easy hope. But as fragile as it may seem, it is capable of planting roots in the world of social insignificance, in the world of the poor, and of breaking out and remaining creative and alive even in the midst of difficult situations....Paul Ricoeur says that theology is born at the intersection of “a space of experience” and “a horizon of hope.” It is a space where Jesus invites us to follow him in encountering the other, especially the “smallest” of his brothers and sisters—and to follow him in the hope that in this encounter, which is open to every person, believer or unbeliever, we will stand within the horizon of service to the other and in communion with the Lord...

There should be monuments, there should be odes, to the nameless heroes who took it first, to the first flaker of flints who forgot his dinner, the first collector of sea-shells to remain celibate.