I enjoyed this face of God for a good while, the jovial one that loves men and is fashioned out of soil, water, and human sweat. For the past three days I had confronted His other face, the terrible unflowering one made all of granite. I had told myself that this, the fire that burns, the granite too hard to be incised by human desires, was the true God. But now as I leaned over the fence into this flowering orchard, I recalled with emotion the ascetic’s saying: “God is a quiver and a gentle tear.”
