“Auch aus Steinen, die dir in den Weg gelegt werden, kannst du etwas Schönes bauen.”
Today is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s birthday. My multi-lingual daughter translated his sentiment: “Even the stones that are laid in your path can be built into something beautiful.”
Goethe’s turn-of-phrase seems a particularly elegant version of her father’s enduring acceptance of what life handed out–the beautiful and the terrible things that happened in his.
It also was Goethe who is reported to have said, “One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” Jim lived by that, too.
On some days–for most of us–that aspiration is harder to meet than others. Days and dates can be etched with wistful memory and regret and pain.
On other days, those seemingly fleeting sights, sounds, and words, are resoundingly good for the soul.
