Reflection for February 19

I was a mediocre Sunday-school student, who generally failed to win the little perfect-attendance pin in May. But I was impressed by the saying that to lust after a woman in your heart is as bad as actual adultery and deserving of self-mutilation, because it posited a world, coexistent with that of trees and automobiles and living people around me, in which a motion of the mind, of the soul, was an actual deed, as important as a physical act. And I took in the concept that God watches the sparrow’s fall—that our world is everywhere, at all times, in every detail watched by God, like a fourth dimension…The parable of the talents bore a clear lesson for me: Live your life. Live it as if there is a blessing on it. Dare to take chances… (John Updike, “The Gospel According to Saint Matthew,” Incarnation, ed. Alfred Corn).