We are cast upon God when we wonder. In wonder is wisdom born. The most elementary and at the same time the most profound of questions is, "Why is there anything at all and not nothing?" "Why am I?" We must never be embarrassed about asking something so basic, so apparently naive. In our supposed sophistication, we may suppress the question, we may become practiced at forgetting it, but we never really get beyond it. The fact that I find myself in a boundless world of innumerable existent beings is astonishing beyond measure.
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Neuhaus on Disruptive Writers
There are writers whom you read because you’re told you must read them. Having done so, they then become part of your history, along with foreign countries you have visited or great music you have heard. It’s all part of the never-ending process called learning, and a very good thing it is. But then there are writers who catch you up short. They are personally disruptive; intellectually and spiritually disruptive. They cannot be fitted into anything so smoothly incremental as a "process." Their claims demand a decision, and contingent upon that decision is a change of disposition toward a host of questions. The thought cannot be resisted: "If he’s right…