Uncovering secrets is apocalyptic in the simple sense (the Greek root means ‘an uncovering’). In this case, it lifts the shame covers. It allows articulation to enter where silence once ruled.

We are each born into a situation-a particular body (its race, sex, health...), a set of ancestors, a community, a nation-and born into the stories told of each of these.

To be a great teacher, you can't simply be looking at how to earn your income. And with a priest or spiritual leader - there's another relationship that makes those lives what they are. And in each of these cases you'll find elements of gift exchange thriving, and you'll also find a tension around it.

Art does not organize parties, nor is it the servant or colleague of power. Rather, the work of art becomes a political force simply through the faithful representation of the spirit. It is a political act to create an image of the self or of the collective.

An essential portion of any artist’s labor is not creation so much as invocation. Part of the work cannot be made, it must be received; and we cannot have this gift except, perhaps, by supplication, by courting, by creating within ourselves that ‘begging bowl’ to which the gift is drawn.

A gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation.

For the slow labor of realizing a potential gift the artist must retreat to those Bohemias, halfway between the slums and the library, where life is not counted by the clock and where the talented may be sure they will be ignored until that time, if it ever comes, when their gifts are viable enough to be set free and survive in the world.