This is near the place I used to live. The river Roding, usually so tame and quiet, melancholy, actually flooded once.How amazing that is, when something crosses it's time-worn boundaries, makes contact with what has surrounded it for so long.

All I remember now is like a loose thread.When the Roding slows, and stones lie still in its dark waters, my heart is lost.

We humans, who have thought of commonalities in terms of things that transcend us, like religion or abstract reason, or in terms of blood and soil, have never stopped to think that living side-by-side with other people was what it was all about. If all truth was on the boundaries, then human beings are that boundary par excellence.

~~~

Chekov said: Let’s put God—and all these grand progressive ideas—to one side. Let’s begin with man; let’s be kind and attentive to the individual man—whether he’s a bishop, a peasant, an industrial magnate, a convict in the Sakhalin Islands or a waiter in a restaurant. Let’s begin with respect, compassion and love for the individual—or we’ll never get anywhere.
---V.G.