Experiencing the present purely is being emptied and hollow; you catch the grace as a man fills his cup under a waterfall. - Annie Dillard

Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.

Let me repeat that these parasitic insects comprise ten percent of all known animal species. How can this be understood? Certainly we give our infants the wrong idea about their fellow creatures in the world. Teddy bears should come with tiny stuffed bearlice; ten percent of all baby bibs and rattles sold should be adorned with colorful blowflies, maggots, and screw-worms. What kind of devil's tithe do we pay? What percentage of the world's species that are not insects are parasitic? Could it be, counting bacteria and viruses, that we live in a world in which half the creatures are running from—or limping from—the other half?

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.