For many people religion is a rigid concept, somewhat like a stone that is passed from generation to generation. We don't add to i...t, change it, or challenge it; we just pass it along. But even the most cursory study of the history of religions would undermine such a view. Religious traditions are far more like rivers than stones. Like the Ganges or the Gallatin, they are flowing or changing. Sometimes they dry up in arid land; sometimes they radically change course and move out to water new territory. All of us contribute to the river of our traditions. We do not know how we will change the river or be changed as we experience its currents.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This canal, which is the oldest in the country, and has even an antique look beside the more modern railroads, is fed by the Conco...rd, so that we were still floating on its familiar waters. It is so much water which the river lets for the advantage of commerce. There appeared some want of harmony in its scenery, since it was not of equal date with the woods and meadows through which it is led, and we missed the conciliatory influence of time on land and water; but in the lapse of ages, Nature will recover and indemnify herself, and gradually plant fit shrubs and flowers along its borders. Already the kingfisher sat upon a pine over the water, and the bream and pickerel swam below. Thus all works pass directly out of the hands of the architect into the hands of Nature, to be perfected.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell. I usually go to the village along its causewa...y, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. The men on the freight trains, who go over the whole length of the road, bow to me as to an old acquaintance, they pass me so often, and apparently they take me for an employee; and so I am. I too would fain be a track-repairer somewhere in the orbit of the earth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"Oh who are these that kiss and pass? A country lover and his lass;... Two lovers looking to be wed; And time shall put them both to bed, But she shall lie with earth above, And he beside another love."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you the name, The LORD'; and I will be gracious to whom I w...ill be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, "I ha...ve no pleasure in them"; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain; in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »