At the sermon were some forty folksβsome bums, some straight and prosperous men and women, and some truly ancient hippies, those phenomenal people who are fifty and have changed nothing. Meath began as if just chatting, then I sensed the sermon was in progress. He stood, no lectern, no altar, no height, in front of his flock, and spoke with a sane joy. Simply a good-looking, middle-aged man with a comfortable interior to him. He wore glasses. A loose hair sprang up at the back of his head and waved about. Everything counts, he said.
Everything counts but you must isolate this thing and not let it become mixed with others. You must look at it as a child would. You must not bring the heaviness of long-thinking and the burden of your hours to it. The lightness, the calm wonder and intensity of a child is what I mean. Picasso says at fifty, At last, I can paint like a child! That must have been paradise for him. Perhaps it waits for you.