The closest book has been close for some time - actually it's hard to judge - The Cloud of Unknowing is within reach - and just under it - Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, or to my left a pile of books from the library. The one on top is Forming Prophetic Literature. And the optimum book would have been Rose Macaulay's Letters to a Friend which I have been enjoying these past few months - but it is just out of reach. So how not to cheat! Well I already cheated. I saw the meme addressed to me at the office, but decided not to mark it as read yet. I don't do books at the office. So in which of these titles at page 123 do these sentences appear?
Not as these heretics do, for they have been likened to those mad folk whose custom it is when they have drunk from some beautiful cup to throw it at the wall and break it; we are not going to do this sort of thing, if we mean to make progress. For we who feed on its fruit are not going to despise the tree, nor when we drink break the cup we have drunk from. I would call the tree and the cup a miracle that we can see, like all those outward observances which help and do not hinder the spirit.
1 comment:
That's an amazing passage. I can imagine it coming from any of the three titles. I would have to guess in a completely subjective manner.
But the passage brings up a question because it reminds me of what I read this morning in Judges 9: Jotham asks the people of Shechem why they crowed Abimalek king and then launches into a parable about the trees going out to anoint a king for themselves. All the trees (and a vine) who were invited to become king refuse the offer because they don't want to despise their own fruit.
Do you think there's a relationship between this passage in your book and the story in Judges?
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