Reason and Passion

I am now well into my second week of law school and, though the workload is heavy, I am enjoying myself immensely.  I am headed to bed shortly after I finish the glass of wine I am currently sipping on.  Before I do, I would like to share with you one of my favorite passages from Khalil Gibran's The Prophet.  The conceit Gibran uses to convey his thoughts in this thin volume is the arrival of a prophet in the imaginary city of Orphalese.  The people of Orphalese gather around this prophet and ask him to speak on various topics.  For instance, a lawyer asks about laws and nursing mother asks about children.  

Here, a priestess asks the prophet to speak of reason and passion.  He answers:

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and sails of your seafaring soul.

If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.

For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

...

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows--then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."

And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky,--then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."

And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

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Goodnight all.