I've been reading this week Brenda Wineapple's book White Heat: The Friendship of Emily Dickinson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. I'm a huge fan of Dickinson's poetry.Reading the book I've come across three quotes from the Belle of Amherst that I'd like to share with you:
"'We thank thee Oh Father,' for these strange Minds, that enamor us against thee."
"On subjects of which we know nothing, we both believe and disbelieve a hundred times an Hour, which keeps Believing nimble."
"When Jesus tells us about his Father, we distrust him. When he shows us his House, we turn away, but when he confides to us that he is 'acquainted with Grief,' we listen, for that also is an Acquaintance of our own."
Thanks Richard, I like the first and third particularly. The first reminds me very much of Augustine whose 'Confessions' I am reading devotionally at the moment. There is that strong sense in his early books that our intellect betrays our desire to come close to God. Not that that is the end of the story for Augustine of course, but he is one who took seriously the path to God through the mind only to discover he was no nearer to God nor to knowing himself. The last quote resonates deeply with what the incarnation means to me. Good stuff.
ReplyDeleteI like these quotes. I read in an introduction to a book of her poems that all of them can be sung to a popular folk song. I will not tell you the song as it completely ruined her poems for me!
ReplyDeleteEmma
Thanks for sharing these. The last particularly moves me and seems to capture the essence of His tenderheartedness toward the wounded, broken and ignored.
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