I'm sitting in Italy, far from home, alone. Walked down a tiny side street and into a quintessential Italian restaurant - who but locals would know it's here. Pink tablecloths, a wonderful pizza of simplicity supported by house-recommended Chianti, chased home with a sweet crème caramel. Alone, enjoying pleasing solitude. But I had a wonderful dinner companion. I could only read his words, yet we spoke of stars in the universe and of other worlds. I would suggest "... who can look at those millions of worlds and not feel that there may well be wonderful universes above us where reason is utterly unreasonable? Yet who knows if in that infinite universe—?" But wisdom prevailed. "No," he responded; "reason is always reasonable, even in the last limbo, in the lost borderland of things. I know that people charge the Church with lowering reason, but it is just the other way. Alone on earth, the Church makes reason really supreme. Alone on earth, the Church affirms that God himself is bound by reason." "Reason and justice grip the remotest and the loneliest star. Look at those stars. Don't they look as if they were single diamonds and sapphires? Well, you can imagine any mad botany or geology you please. Think of forests of adamant with leaves of brilliants. Think the moon is a blue moon, a single elephantine sapphire. But don't fancy that all that frantic astronomy would make the smallest difference to the reason and justice of conduct. On plains of opal, under cliffs cut out of pearl, you would still find a notice-board, 'Thou shalt not steal." Dining alone can be such fun. I only wish others knew my dining companion.
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Well I'm sold. The meal you described made my mouth water and my stomach grumble, and I'm pretty sure I could get used to your dining companion, as long as it was quiet enough in the restaurant for me to concentrate on the words. I do love an intelligent, thought provoking dining companion.
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Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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