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“When I was Chief Superintendent, I had a framed poster in my office. On it were the last words of a favorite poet, Seamus Heaney. Noli timere. It’s Latin. Do you know what it means?” He looked around the room. “Neither did I,” he admitted when no one spoke. “I had to look it up. It means ‘Be Not Afraid.’”
Le beau risque. The great risk. The beautiful risk. To climb out of the hole and start again.
“Something from St. Francis. Something he said to a woman who’d lost her child in a river.” Homer closed his eyes. “Clare, Clare, do not despair. Between the bridge and the water, I was there.”
Marilynne Robinson’s words always made him think of his father and mother. “I’ll pray that you grow up a brave man in a brave country,” he whispered. “I will pray you find a way to be useful.”
Then, opening his eyes, he looked at the white world and thought of the white whale. That devoured reason. All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it.
