when one gave oneself to them

Near the end of the war, he was injured in an explosion which 

seriously impaired his vision. Told that his loss of sight would eventually

be total, he decided to return to more familiar surroundings in France to

continue his study of music and to prepare himself to leave the world of 

the sighted. "The sight of a pin," he wrote, "a hair, a leaf, a glass of

water - these filled me with tremendous excitement. The plants

 in the courtyards, the cobblestones, the lamp posts, the faces of strangers. I no

longer took them in and bound them up in me, they retained their values,

their identities. I went out to them, immersed myself in them and found

them more beautiful than I ever dreamed they could be. They tought,

they nourished when one gave oneself to them."

~ Robert Ellsberg

from a profile of John Howard Griffin

in The Catholic Worker

 found here in The Heron Dance Book of

Love and Gratitude

by Roderick Maclver

art by Mr. Maclver