There were no formerly heroic times, and there was no formerly pure generation. There is no one here but us chickens, and so it has always been. We are a people who are busy and powerful, knowledgeable, yet ambivalent. We are important, yet fearful, and also self-aware. We are a people who scheme, promote, deceive, and conquer. We pray for our loved ones and long to flee misery and skip death. It is a weakening and discoloring idea that rustic people knew God personally once upon a time, or even knew selflessness or courage or literature, but that it is too late for us. In fact, the absolute is available to everyone in every age. There was never a more holy age than ours, and never a less.

For the Time Being is a lucid, flowing narrative. It takes you on a journey from meditations on sand to the backstory of an army of terra-cotta figures. Along the way, there are detours to ponder the lives of bird-headed children, world religions, historical tragedies, and Ted Bundy. And somehow, it manages to be engrossing. It makes you think about the human condition, about our past, present, and future. It shows us that we are all part of something bigger, something that is constantly evolving and changing.

Before I had even read a word of For the Time Being, a review had already formed in my mind. It was simply this: a lovely little book. Those four words hung there confidently in the white space.

I read the synopsis on the back cover and was intrigued to learn that For the Time Being included "The natural history of sand. The dizzying variety of clouds. Ten thousand terra-cotta figures fashioned for a Chinese emperor in place of the human court that might have followed him into death. The palaeontologist and theologian Teilhard de Chardin crossing the Gobi desert."

Right away, I recognized four of my greatest miniature obsessions: the desert (and by extension, sand), clouds, the history of China, and French explorers. If the moon had been mentioned, I might have had to put the book back on the shelf and walk away for fear of squealing out loud in a public place.

On longer readings, this book seemed on the verge of reaching the sublime. But then my train journey would end, or a friend would show up, and I would have to close For the Time Being and return to real life, starting again from scratch the next time. I'm not sure if I stopped in the wrong places or started again in the right ones.

Still, there it is: a lovely little book.

If, then, the human layer in which we spend our lives is but an epiphenomenon in nature's mechanical doings,

if science devotes scant attention to human culture,

and if science has only recently begun to scrutinize human consciousness, leaving other disciplines, if any, to study human thought,

then science, which is, God knows, correct, nevertheless cannot address what interests us most: What are we doing here?

In this work, Dillard delves into numerous disparate topics. She explores birth defects,

a French paleontologist and theologian,

a Chinese emperor,

and the shapes of clouds. In all these topics, she endeavors to understand the question of existence,

and more precisely, that of a god. She freely admits at one point that she "doesn't know beans about God."

But she quotes different scriptures, theologians, and holy men,

and then contrasts this with certain tangible facts about the world: mass genocide, tsunamis, plagues, disease, and so on.

As the book progresses, all topics converge to the primary focus. It seems as if she is more accepting of SOMETHING,

though likely not an entity that is omniscient. I, personally, do not subscribe to any religion,

but I think it is possible to accept and/or recognize a divinity in things that does not stem from any theology.

The book itself is filled with insightful lines - some from Dillard herself and some from others. Here are a few of them:

"Be pleased yet once again to come down and breathe a soul into the newly formed, fragile film of matter with which this day the world is to be freshly clothed."

"We live in all we seek. The hidden shows up in too-plain sight. It lives captive on the face of the obvious - the people, events, and things of the day - to which we as sophisticated children have long since become oblivious. What a hideout: Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of time and stuff like color."

"Ours is a planet down of beings. Our generations overlap like shingles. We don't fall in rows like hay, but we fall. Once we get here, we spend forever on the globe, most of it tucked under. While we breathe, we open time like a path in the grass. We open time as a boat's stem slits the crest of the present."

This is nonfiction that reads like poetry. It is a deeply spiritual book.

FOR THE TIME BEING explores the way humans interact with (or ignore) the wonders of life. Each chapter is structured with the same subheadings such as birth, sand, China, clouds, encounters, etc.

Dillard's research and musings on each topic evolve as the writing progresses. At first, those musings seem disparate. However, over time, they accumulate and intersect.

For example, the book begins with a somewhat of a catalog of birth defects. Later, we read a description of a man splitting wood. He is seen from a distance, backlit by the sun, so that his figure appears as a darkened silhouette. He raises his axe, and rather than his intention being simply to split the wood, it seems as if he is actually working to split the sky in order to demand an audience with God.

Dillard interjects her desire to borrow his tool so that she can ask God why children would be born with the dwarf bird birth defect. These connections surprise readers as they blossom into small moments of wisdom and wonder.

Overall, FOR THE TIME BEING is a thought-provoking and beautifully written work that invites readers to reflect on the mysteries and marvels of life.

An impossibly beautiful journey through beginnings and endings, pulse, and transcience.

Here are some passages that are truly memorable:

(disclaimer: though these are powerful in and of themselves, it is the organization of the book itself which carries these thoughts in such an enlightening way). ~

"The blue light of television flickers on the cave wall. If the fellow crawls out of the cave, what does he see? Not the sun itself, but night, and the two thousand visible stars. Once, I tried to converse with him, the fellow who crawled out of his blue-lit cave to the real world. He had looked into this matter of God. He had to shout to make himself heard: 'How do you stand the wind out here?' I don't. Not for long. I drive a schoolkids' car pool. I shouted back, 'I don't! I read Consumer Reports every month!' It seemed unlikely that he heard. The wind blew into his face. He turned and faced the lee. I don't know how long he stayed out. A little at a time does for me -- a little every day." (32-33)

"I saw here below me the born and the buried stuck motionless, and beyond them walked the breathing, getting around...There were almost five billion of us specimens alive that morning in 1982. We who were awake were a multitude trampling the continents for our day in the light--feeling our lives and stirring about, building a better world a joy, or not--and soon the continents would roll us under, and new sets of people would trample us." (44-45)

"Any other group you care to mention among the 5.9 billion persons now living, or perhaps among the 80 billion dead? There are about a billion more people living now than there are years since our sun condensed from interstellar gas. I cannot make sense of this." (59).

Page 66-69 SAND!!

"On July 23: 'What can poor mortals say about the clouds?' While people describe them, they vanish. 'Nevertheless, these fleeting sky mountains are as substantial and significant as the more lasting upheavals of granite beneath them. Both alike are built up and die, and in God's calendar, difference of duration is nothing." (71-72)

"That is, evolution's 'every success is necessarily paid for by a large percentage of failures.' In order to live all, we pay 'a mysterious tribute of tears, blood, and sin.' It is hard to find a more inarguable explanation for the physical catastrophe and the suffering we endure at chance from the material world." (87)

"Sometimes we touch strangers. Sometimes no one speaks. Like clouds we travelers meet and part with members of our own cohort, our fellows in the panting caravans of those who are alive while we are. How many strangers have we occasion to hold in our arms? Once there was a beautiful, wasting young woman in a turnpike restroom; I held her in my arms several times as she got in and out of her wheelchair, in and out of her jeans." (135)

"'When you walk across the field with your mind pure and holy, then from all the stones, and all growing things, and all animals, the sparks of their souls come out and cling to you, and then they are purified and become a holy fire in you.' One of Baal Shem Tov's spiritual heirs put it this way." (137)

"Ecstasy, I think, is a soul's response to the waves holiness makes as it nears." (138)

"A man who struggles long to pray and study Torah will be able to discover the sparks of divine light in all of creation, in each solitary bush and grain and woman and man. And when he cleaves strenuously to God for many years, he will be able to release the sparks, to unwrap and lift these particle shreds of holiness, and return them to God. This is the human task: to direct and channel the spark's return. This task is 'tikkun,' restoration. Yours is a holy work on earth right now, they say, whatever that work is, if you tie your love and desire to God. You do not deny or flee the world, but redeem it, all of it--just as it is." (141)

"In tropical South America live the Kogi Indians. They say, as Michael Parfit tells it, that when an infant begins life, it knows three things: mother, night, and water." (143)

pg 159

"They understand that grand coincidence brings us together, upright and within earshot, in this flickering generation of human life on this durable planet -- common language or not, sale or no sale -- and therefore to mark the occasion we might as well have a little cigarette." (162-163)

"For Tillich, God's activity is by no means interference, but instead divine creativity--the ongoing creation of life with all its greatness and danger. I don't know. I don't know beans about God." (169)

"'Plunge into matter,' Teilhard said --and at another time, 'Plunge into God.' And he said this fine thing: 'By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers.'" (171)

"'Only by living completely in the world can one learn to believe. One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself--even to make oneself a righteous person.' Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this in a letter from prison a year before the Nazis hanged him for resisting Nazism and plotting to assassinate Hitler." (171)

"We live in all we seek. The hidden shows up in too-plain sight. It lives captive on the face of the obvious--the people, events, and things of the day--to which we as sophisticated children have long since become oblivious. What a hideout: Holiness lies spread and borne over the surface of time and stuff like color.

What to do? There is only matter, Teillhard said; there is only spirit, the Kabbalists and Gnostics said. These are essentially identical views. Each impels an individual soul to undertake to divinize, transform, and complete the world, to--as these thinkers say quite as if there were both matter and spirit--'subject a little more matter to spirit,' to 'life up the fallen and to free the imprisoned,' to 'establish in this our place a dwelling place of the Divine Presence,' to 'work for the redemption of the world,' to 'extract spiritual power without letting any of it be lost,' to 'help the holy spiritual substance to accomplish itself in that section of creation in which we are living,' to 'mend the shattered unity of the divine worlds,' to 'force the gates of the spirit and cry, \\"Let me come by.\\"'" (172-173)

And the last few pages!!

This book takes us on a profound exploration of life, death, the divine, and our place in the world. The author's insights and the beautiful prose make it a truly captivating read. Each passage invites us to reflect on the deeper meaning of our existence and the mysteries that surround us. It challenges us to look beyond the surface and discover the hidden holiness in the ordinary. Whether it's about the fleeting nature of clouds or the significance of our interactions with strangers, the book offers a wealth of food for thought. As we reach the end, we are left with a sense of wonder and a desire to continue this journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth.

Dillard's words are so spectacularly crafted that I had to pause the audio and listen again and again.

Her combination of science and spirit is truly engaging. Here, she weaves together stories of mystical Judaism, such as early rabbinic merkabah with later kabbalah and Lubavitcher Hasidism, along with reflections on newborn babies with severe deformities. She also delves into the science and life cycle of a particle of sand, mating snails, and the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, the French Jesuit priest and paleontologist who discovered Peking Man [homo erectus] in the early 1900s.

I particularly liked the section on dancing, which related the story of the Ba'al Shem Tov. The Ba'al Shem Tov danced and leaped as he prayed, and his congregation followed suit. Hasids today still dance and leap. Dancing is not just an expression; it is an achievement. Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav noted that if a dancer could persuade a melancholy person to join them, their sadness would lift. And if you are that melancholy person, he taught, persuade yourself to dance, for it is an achievement to struggle and bring that sadness into the dance. By means of dance, one can nullify the evil forces.

This idea of dance as a powerful and transformative force is truly captivating. It shows how something as simple as movement and rhythm can have a profound impact on our emotions and our lives.

The first half of this book was truly captivating. The exploration of the paradox of empathy in the aftermath of tragedy and the resulting fatigue was extremely interesting. Even though it dealt with heavy and difficult-to-digest material, it managed to hold my attention.

However, the second half took a turn that didn't quite resonate with me. Dillard's repeated attempts to prove that God is semiponent felt a bit forced and didn't align with my personal beliefs or interests. It made the book lose some of its appeal for me.

Overall, while the first half was engaging and thought-provoking, the second half didn't quite live up to the same standard. It's a shame, as I was really enjoying the book up until that point. But perhaps this just goes to show that different people have different tastes when it comes to literature.

"Not My Favorite of Hers"

This work, unfortunately, is not my favorite of hers.

Although she has shown great talent and creativity in many of her previous pieces, this one seems to lack the same charm and depth.

The overall concept feels a bit muddled, and the execution doesn't quite live up to the expectations I had.

The characters, while somewhat interesting, don't fully come to life on the page, and the plot doesn't have the kind of tension and momentum that would keep me engaged from start to finish.

Perhaps it's a case of personal taste, but for me, this work just doesn't measure up to her other achievements.

However, I still have high hopes for her future work and look forward to seeing how she continues to grow and develop as an artist.

Annie Dillard might very well be my top choice. She could perhaps be the only religious/spiritual/Christian writer whom I would always eagerly read. The main reason for this is that her predominant theological inquiry appears to be asking God, "what the fuck??"

This particular book wasn't my absolute favorite among hers. I believe I have a preference for her shorter essays and short stories. Nevertheless, it did contain several extremely memorable lines that are classic Annie Dillard gems. For instance, "Quick: Why aren't you dusting? On every continent, we sweep floors and wipe tabletops not only to shine the place but to forestall burial."

I think what makes her writing so outstanding are these juxtapositions between very lofty, spiritual wonderings and conversational, almost idiomatic expressions. Her hard-hitting spiritual questions seem to be instantly deflated by the casualness, yet somehow they are made all the more relatable and heartbreaking.

I love any writing that takes on the seemingly unprecedented awfulness of the present and gently reminds us that every generation believes they are living through an apocalypse of humanity, faith, and so on. "Is it not late? A late time to be living? Are not our generations the crucial ones? For we have changed the world. Are not our heightened times the important ones? For we have nuclear bombs. Are we not especially significant because our century is?-- No, we are not and it is not... There must be something heroic about our time, something that lifts it above all those other times. Plague? Funny weather?"

I have a profound feeling that I'll find myself irresistibly drawn to reading this one again someday. In fact, I could probably peruse it a dozen times and each time, I would come away with a completely distinct and unique understanding. At this moment, I don't quite possess the ability within me to properly review or fully explain my deep-seated love for this book. So, instead, I'll simply leave a random highlight here:

"This hospital, much like every other, is a mysterious hole in the universe through which holiness issues forth in powerful blasts. It operates in both directions, transcending the boundaries of time. On the wards above and below me, countless men and women are facing the inevitable process of dying. Their hearts either seize up, give out completely, or clatter irregularly. Their kidneys fail, their lungs harden or fill with fluid and drown, and their brains clog or jam, ultimately dying for lack of blood. Their awarenesses gradually lower, just like the wicks of lamps being dimmed. And off they go, these numerous great and beloved individuals, as death systematically subtracts them one by one from the ranks of the living. Approximately 164,300 of them pass away each day worldwide, and 6,000 a day in the United States. Meanwhile, the hospitals unceremoniously shunt their bodies away. Simultaneously, here they come, these many new people, for now looking absurdly alike. About 10,000 of them arrive each day in this country, seemingly as shabby replacements."

This was a truly rare book for me.

It had the power to make me stop in my tracks, to savor every single word that I had read.

At times, I would even go back and reread certain passages for the sake of clarity.

Annie Dillard delves deep into the profound themes of life, death, God, evil, suffering, and even bird-headed dwarves.

She weaves her introspection into something truly beautiful.

After reading this book, I was left seriously pondering about my own existence.

What is my place in this vast world?

And what more should I be doing to be actively living?

There are so, so many things that I loved about this book.

But I have been particularly fixated on the idea of dirt, sand, and such.

How all of us are inevitably heading towards that state, how it is all around us, and how we start the process of dying from the very day we are born.

Rather than being alarming, I find this idea quite comforting.

It makes me realize the transience of life and the importance of making the most of every moment.

Dizzying - the earth and our life fall open.

The earth, our home planet, is a place of wonder and mystery. Its vast landscapes, from majestic mountains to deep oceans, hold countless secrets waiting to be discovered.

Our life on this planet is equally diverse and complex. We experience joy and sorrow, love and loss, growth and change. Each moment is a new adventure, a chance to learn and evolve.

As we look around us, we see the beauty and chaos of the world. We witness the power of nature in the form of storms, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. We also see the ingenuity of humanity in the form of skyscrapers, technology, and art.

The earth and our life are constantly evolving, and it is up to us to make the most of this journey. We must strive to protect the planet and all its inhabitants, while also pursuing our own dreams and aspirations.

In conclusion, the earth and our life are a source of endless fascination and inspiration. Let us embrace the dizzying possibilities and make this world a better place for ourselves and future generations.