Theo of Golden

by Allen Levi

Theo stopped, bent slightly at the waist with his hands clasped behind him, and whispered to the imploring creature. “I’m sorry, dear fellow, but I have nothing to give you this morning. Perhaps tomorrow? And stop complaining. Be glad you’re not in New York today.”

ambivalence that was not obvious in his demeanor.

Sadness might be many things, but it is rarely stupid. The good sadness, I think, is always trying to tell us something very important.”

“Good morning, St. Minnette. You are strong. And you are brave. And you are kind. Even when you are sad.”

towering tree, as others had done in other places, served as Theo’s quiet companion and mentor in the ancient ways of stillness and listening. It was good company for an old soul.

“Yes, we can be such a terrible race at times, but, at the same time, terribly wonderful. All capable of saintliness.

“It’s hard enough to define what art is, much less ‘good art.’ I wonder if there is such a thing. Maybe there are just good responses. But I guess if a work of art makes us see something familiar in a new way or makes us feel something we ought to have felt all along or shows us our place in the world more clearly, maybe then it qualifies as ‘good.’ If it makes us better somehow, maybe that’s what gives it value.”

might not make a lot of sense, but for anything to be good, truly good, there must be love in it.

There must be love for the gift itself, love for the subject being depicted or the story being told, and love for the audience. Whether the art is sculpture, farming, teaching, lawmaking, medicine, music, or raising a child, if love is not in it — at the very heart of it — it might be skillful, marketable, or popular but I doubt it is truly good. Nothing is what it’s supposed to be if love is not at the core.”

Unmet expectations have a clever way of showing up at every stage of life.

And remember, heaven can draw a straight line with a crooked stick.”

The davenport became home to Eeyore and Aslan and Miss Rumphius and Punchinello and a Giving Tree.

The full text of “The Princess of Titalamish,” read by the author, is available at www.allenlevi.com. Anyone choosing to read it aloud themselves is advised to do so with a Portuguese accent, in the presence of a child, with appropriate gestures and dramatic pauses. The truly brave will also attempt to do their own illustrations.

There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either.

And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.”

It is an imponderable thought that the Giver of Faces, the face of heaven itself, the face for which every heart yearns, became a wee babe, misty eyed and helpless, looking Himself for the tender face of His mother on the night of the angels.