The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.
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We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us. Ideas of the Stone Age exist side by side with the latest scientific thought. Only a fraction of mankind has emerged from the Dark Ages, and in the most lucid brains, as Logan Pearsall Smith has said, we come upon nests of woolly caterpillars. Seemingly sane men entrust their wealth to stargazers and their health to witch doctors. Giant planes throb through the stratosphere, but half their passengers are wearing magic amulets and are protected from harm by voodoo incantations. Hotels boast of express elevators and a telephone in every room, but omit thirteen from all floor and room numbers lest their guests be ill at ease.
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We are cold to others only when we are dull in ourselves, and have neither thoughts nor feelings to impart to them. Give a man a topic in his head, a throb of pleasure in his heart, and he will be glad to share it with the first person he meets.
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YER OF THE VIGILE DEL FUOCO Lord who light the skyes and fill up the abysses, burn in our breast the flame of sacrifice. Strenghten the spirit of service that burn in us, make safe our eye, steady our foot, to make effective the rescue that in your name we bringto brothers in danger. When the siren shrieks in the streets of the town, listen the throb of our earths devoted to renounce. When in competition with eagles we climb to You, support us Your sored hand. When the fire irresistible flares up, burns the evil nestled in the houses of men, not the life and affections of Your sons. Lord, we are the bearer of Your Cross, and risk is our daily bread. A day without risk is not lived, because for we believers death is life, is light: in the dread of collapses, in the fury of waters, in the hell of fires. Our life is the fire, our faith is God. For Saint Barbara martyr. AMEN
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Leisure time should be an occasion for deep purpose to throb and for ideas to ferment. Where a man allows leisure to slip without some creative use, he has forfeited a bit of happiness.
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