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
