You Can't Take It With You

Martha Scanlan: Up On The Divide

Thomas Merton wrote,
there is always a temptation
to diddle around in the contemplative life, making
itsy-bitsy statues. There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying,
I never merited this grace,
quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.
I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.
Go up into the gaps, if you can find them; they shift and vanish too.
Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock--more than a maple--a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon.
You can’t take it with you.
--Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek