Saturday

I interrupt this regularly scheduled reflection with a moment of applause. Yes! Ed Morrissey: Obama is "an empty suit and a pandering rookie." I agree as Obama "drops like a rock in the polls."

Rest in peace, Tony Snow. What a truly sad day it is for your family and many, many admirers.

"If spiritual openings are accidents, as a number of teachers have pointed out, then the spiritual work of silence and stillness makes us accident-prone, susceptible to the imagination of eternity, the wit of God. In matters of the spirit, no road is ever straight. When first we begin to open, the vastness can be frightening and so we regress, sag back into the familiar darkness, where we can be close to the earth and rest. There we abide, gathering invisible resilience, until once again the involuntary compassion appears in the midst of suffering, and we step back onto the stairs of Purgatory and the steady repetitions of spiritual work. Just why the door begins to open is a mystery. But if we follow a spiritual method it does happen; we are thrown into vastness as into the sea. Since we are all unique in what we bring, there are many different ways of being cast upon the infinite. But always we meet something greater than ourselves, beyond all we hold important. When we are utterly ready for it, this vastness is no longer frightening, but utterly comforting."

----The Light Inside the Dark, by John Tarrant