pat loughery

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;

When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;

Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

– Walt Whitman

I ran into a story referring to this poem today while studying the Orthodox Church and preparing for an upcoming paper. It reminds me of a little blog entry I posted a couple of years ago.

My prayer for myself and my fellow students is that we remember that there’s a vast difference between knowing about something and knowing Someone.