The Battlefield

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your
judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn
the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay,
the lovers of all your elements?

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the 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.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you
would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one
guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the
love and the faith of both.

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.