An Academic Pursuit

The sweet baby rabbit that breakfasted in our backyard.

"If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work.  The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable.  Favourable conditions never come.  There are, of course, moments when the pressure of the excitement is so great that only superhuman self-control could resist it.  They come both in war and pace.  We must do the best we can." 

"Happy work is done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment "as to the Lord."  It is only our daily bread we are encouraged to ask for.  The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received." 

"But if we thought that for some souls, and at some times, the life of learning, humbly offered to God, was, in its own small way, one of the appointed approaches to the Divine reality and the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can think so still." 

- from "Learning in War-Time" found in The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis

Though he is over-quoted, it is still encouraging to hear a justification for academic pursuits when so often nothing tangible results from them: perhaps a paper written or a book read, a new edition or a published volume.  (I think that's why I'm continually drawn to life on a farm, not only because it allows a life near animals, but also because the results of a day's labor are seen and felt.) Yet here is today's work and today's bread and it is good.