eth-ik pt. 2

Today was our final Ethics class; it felt like being birthed into blinding daylight from the dark, warm comfort of a womb.  So grateful, but so terrified.  Here are some quotes I am left chewing on and metabolizing:

Yesterday I met a whole man.  It is a rare experience, but always an illuminating and ennobling one.  It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price…one has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms.  One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love.  One has to accept pain as a condition of existence.  One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing.  One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying. – Morris West

Jewish wisdom sanctions the yearning, even ennobles it, at the same time teaching that there is no meaning: only a kind of dance between meaning and ambiguity; understanding and misunderstanding; faith and doubt; essence and no-essence.  And the more joyous the dance, the richer and more holy the life.     – Irwin Kula

Doubt is a prerequisite for any meaningful journey. – Irwin Kula

Please read those.  Maybe close your eyes for ten seconds after you read each one.  They are so beautiful. 

Still working on this burden of a paper - trying to articulate my personal/professional ethic. Trying not to feel completely overwhelmed.  Trying to figure out what words, coherent words, I have to articulate my hopes, fears, dreams, ambivalence, paralysis, terror, responsibility, helplessness, naivete, childlike enthusiasm of going into this work.