“God gives us ministers of love,
Which we regard not, being near;
Death takes them from us, then we feel
That angels have been with us here!”
My Mother's Grave.
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James Aldrich 3
American editor and minor poet 1810–1856Related quotes

Author's Remarks.
Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (2003)
Context: I don't know what God is, or what God had in mind when the universe was set in motion. In fact, I don't know if God even exists, although I confess that I sometimes find myself praying in times of great fear, or despair, or astonishment at a display of unexpected beauty. There are some ten thousand religious sects — each with its own cosmology, each with its own answer for the meaning of life and death. Most assert that the other 9,999 not only have it completely wrong but are instruments of evil, besides. None of the ten thousand has yet persuaded me to make the requisite leap of faith. In the absence of conviction, I've come to terms with the fact that uncertainty is an inescapable corollary of life. An abundance of mystery is simply part of the bargain — which doesn't strike me as something to lament. Accepting the essential inscrutability of existence, in any case, is surely preferable to its opposite: capitulating to the tyranny of intransigent belief. And if I remain in the dark about our purpose here, and the meaning of eternity, I have nevertheless arrived at an understanding of a few modest truths: Most of us fear death. Most of us yearn to comprehend how we got here, and why — which is to say, most of us ache to know the love of our creator. And we will no doubt feel that ache, most of us, for as long as we happen to be alive.

“Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws”
An American Prayer (1978)
Variant: Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth a raven´s claws…

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 592.

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 109, note 62

August 15, 2015 http://www.wnd.com/wnd_video/farrakhan-retaliation-we-must-rise-up-and-kill-those-who-kill-us/ (15 August 2015)

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Love (1947), p. 270