"Blessed are they..."

Fr. James Turro

Everyone knows of Galileo's experiments

with a feather and a stone

dropped from the top

of the leaning tower of Pisa.

Scholars consider these experiments

marked the beginning of modern science.

It is stunning to reflect:

The progress of science

would have been slower

if that tower had stood straight and tall.

As it is, the very fault of the tower -

its crookedness -

has contributed richly

to the enhancement of human life.

How often it happens

that some flaw

in our own lives

serves in the same way.

An illness -

a setback of any sort

that at first blush could seem to be

an irredeemable tragedy -

turns out to be

productive of a great good.

There is much meaning in that

an old saw that runs:

God writes straight with crooked lines.