Thoughts in these times

 

“The conventional wisdom of the Tower of Babel story is that the collapse was a misfortune. That it was the distraction of the weight of many languages that precipitated the tower’s failed architecture. That one monolithic language would have expedited the building, and heaven would have been reached. Whose heaven, she wonders? And what kind? Perhaps the achievement of Paradise was premature, a little hasty if no one could take the time to understand other languages, other views, other narratives. Had they, the heaven they imagined might have been found at their feet. Complicated, demanding, yes, but a view of heaven as life; not heaven as post-life.”

(Toni Morrison, The Nobel Lecture in Literature, 1993)

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