On the roads, I can see truth revealed whole without thought or reason. There I experience the sudden understanding that comes unasked, unbidden. I simply rest, rest within myself, rest within the pure rhythm of my running. And I wait.
Bidden or unbidden, God is present.
The best art always comes unbidden.
It is a base thing for a man to wax old in careless self-neglect before he has lifted up his eyes and seen what manner of man he was made to be, in the full perfection of bodily strength and beauty. But these glories are withheld from him who is guilty of self-neglect, for they are not wont to blaze forth unbidden.
My songs emerge from my life, or wherever they do, unbidden and unplanned and completely on a schedule of their own.
Want is a thing that unfurls unbidden like fungus, opening large upon itself, stopless, filling the sky. But needs, from one day to the next, are few enough to fit in a bucket, with room enough left to rattle like brittle brush in a dry wind.
Some loves come unbidden like winds from the sea, and others grow from the seeds of friendship.
Unbidden guests Are often welcomest when they are gone.
Love is a gracious host to his guests though to the unbidden his house is a mirage and a mockery.
Parenthood is a school for humility. We can't choose the precise traits of our children, and that is morally important. It teaches us what William May, a theologian whom I greatly admire, calls "an openness to the unbidden. "
