Saturday, January 14, 2017

letter without postmark

Dear Court Rooms of America,

This is how William Penn outlines the proceeding of court for his "Frame of the Government of Pennsylvania in America." Perhaps we could take a few notes. . . 
"All pleadings, processes, and records in courts shall be short, and in English, and in an ordinary and plain Character, that they may be understood, and Justice speedily administered" (35). 
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Penn, William. "Frame of the Government of Pennsylvania in America." For the Record: A Documentary History of America, vol. 1, 
              edited by David E. Shi and Holly A. Mayer, W.W. Norton and Company, 2016, 32-37. 

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

longing

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited" (Lewis, "Weight of Glory").

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Lewis, C. S. "The Weight of Glory." Mark Verber's Links to Christian Information. http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf