“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever," writes British poet John Keats, who died at the tender age of twenty-five, "Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

    Keats understood, understood acutely, the fundamental nature of existence.  Although this world can be highly mercurial and unpredictable, although this life can be achingly volatile and capricious, its Urstoff, its essence remains the same:  a fount of "things of beauty" which will "never pass into nothingness."

     We will always have the beauty of the planet before us, we will always have the marvel of life's fecundity around us.  Wherever we are, wherever we go, we remain in the gentle embrace of the seminal character of the joy and wonder and beauty of existence.

     The world is just that way.  Like God.