40/444 Healing from Infidelity: Annie Dillard on Mystery and Beauty
2011.10.15
From the Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.
There is the mystery of the continuous creation and all that providence implies: the uncertainty of vision, the horror of the fixed,
the dissolution of the present, the intricacy of beauty, the pressure of fecundity, the elusiveness of the free, and the flawed
natureof perfection. The mountains--Tinker and Brushy, McAfee's Knob and Dead Man--are a passive mystery, the oldest of all.
Theirs is the one simple mystery of creation from nothing, of matter itself, anything at all, the given. Mountains are giant, restful,
absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some
creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home.
Sit with this passage. Let it wash over you. Read it again focusing on the words or sections that stand out to you. Mostly, let your heart be open; allow providence to bring healing to the flawed nature of your perfecton.