Thumbing through Rilke’s Poems from the Book of Hours (internal link), I came across this stanza:
You are the deep epitome of things
that keeps its being’s secret with locked lip,
and shows itself to others otherwise:
to the ship, a haven — to the land, a ship.
In German
Du bist der Dinge tiefer Inbegriff,
der seines Wesens letztes Wort verschweigt
und sich den andern immer anders zeigt:
dem Schiff als Küste und dem Land als Schiff.
It reminded me of the philosophy of finding God in all things. I did a bit of searching and came up with this wonderful summation from the Jesuits. (external link)
Finding God in all things is at the core of Ignatian Spirituality and is rooted in our growing awareness that God can found in every one, in every place and in everything. When we learn to pay more attention to God, we become more thankful and reverent, and through this we become more devoted to God, more deeply in love with our Creator.
I find these two quotes to be fine examples of saying the same thing in different ways. In poetry, a sense of wonder and mystery, in prose, the direct method of laying a thought bare. Which do you find more appealing?
