“The closer men came to perfecting for themselves a paradise, the more impatient they became with it, and with themselves as well. They made a garden of pleasure, and became progressively more miserable with it as it grew in richness and power and beauty; for then, perhaps, it was easier to see something was missing in the garden, some tree or shrub that would not grow. When the world was in darkness and wretchedness, it could believe in perfection and yearn for it. But when the world became bright with reason and riches, it began to sense the narrowness of the needle’s eye, and that rankled for a world no longer willing to believe or yearn.”
Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
A good explanation of why secular liberals are often so touchy and generally unhappy. They have a world wide garden to build but do not realize they lack the means.
I am also beginning to think that people like me are despised because we are trees that will not go to their proper place in their garden – and work to uproot the “ornamental nettles” that they so carefully planted.
St Anthony Feast Day just passed on 17th January. Wise words to remember especially in these strange times.
I’m reminded of these lines from these Poems:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that had made all the difference. The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too
If, Rudyard Kipling