worthy of my common place...

but so is the rest of the book, so I haven't actually written it in. I might just have to stick the book at the back of my commonplace journal. This term of Rhetoric is, at least so far, SO much better than the last term. It is the poetry term, which also means creative...and you know I'll like that better than the logic term! Today I read Holy the Firm, by Annie Dillard. Oh, it is so good! It's basically just a long creative sketch about life. AND it's only 75 pages (and 14 pt. font)--you should read it. Here's a selection that I found especially inspiring (and you'll probably see more clips from this book in the near future):

"How can people think that seek a name? A name, like a face, is something you have when you're alone. There is no such thing as an artist: there is only the world, lit or unlit as the as the light allows. When the candle is burning, who looks at the wick? When the candle is out, who needs it? But the world without light is wasteland and chaos, and a life without sacrifice is abomination. What can any artist set on fire but his world? What can any people bring to the alter but all it has ever owned in the thin towns or over the desolate plains? What can an artist use but materials, such as they are? What can he light but the short string of his gut, and when that's burnt out, any muck ready to hand? His face is flame like a seraph's lighting the kingdom of God for the people to see; his life goes up in the works; his feet are waxen and salt. He is holy and he is firm, spanning all the long gap with the length of his love, in flawed imitation of Christ on the cross stretched both ways unbroken and thorned. So must the work be also, in touch with; spanning the gap, from here to eternity."