Heavy with Wonder

Some reflections from the jewish theologian/poet/mystic/historian Abraham Heschel:

Heavy with Wonder

"To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words.. The tangent to the curve of human experience lies beyond the limits of language. The world of things we perceive is but a veil. Its flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it contains is inscrutable. Its silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away.
Sometimes we wish the world would cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear-filling grandeur.
Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder."

Like a Bell

"Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind - these are all a drive towards serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell. It is as if He were waiting to enter our empty, perishing lives."


[I asked for Wonder, A Spiritual Anthology - Abraham Joshua Heschel. Edited by Samuel H. Dresner]