“Why don’t you think of him as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity, the one who will someday arrive, the ultimate fruit of a tree whose leaves we are?  What keeps you from projecting his birth into the ages that are coming into existence, and living your life as a painful and lovely day in the history of a great pregnancy?  Don’t you see how everything that happens is again and again a beginning, and couldn’t it be His beginning, since, in itself, starting is always so beautiful?”

-Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter Six (LTYP, trans. Stephen Mitchell)

Underlines mine, Two Thousand and Four / São João do Estoril, Portugal.

2 thoughts on ““Why don’t you think of him as the one who is coming”

  1. this is a gorgeous quote. i have just read and reread and reread and reread it.
    especially in my current state, it makes so much sense~ beginnings, waiting, starts, newness.
    can’t wait to see you!

    1. Thanks, Jane. I was really close to painting this quote all over our walls in that old apartment of our’s in Estoril 🙂 Can’t wait to see you in Prague in just a few weeks!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *