‘Tis the gift to be simple
‘tis the gift to be free,
‘tis the gift to come down where we ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain’d.
To bow and to bend we shan’t be sham’d
To turn, turn will be our delight
Till by turning we come round right
“Simple Gifts”
““You have art; we have prayer.” His observation expresses the Shaker point of view that although there are myriad forms of spiritual expression in the world, all are ultimately manifestations of the same gift from God.”
“Life itself, and each of the activities that comprise it, whether it be working, singing, eating, dancing, or sleeping, is regarded as a gift from the Spirit- not a duty to be accomplished, but an offering to God tantamount to prayer.”
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be uninformed… Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another the gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
The Divorce of Heaven and Hell by C.S. Lewis
Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or’; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like tor etain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the center: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles forks into two, and each of those two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level life is not like a river but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.