"Blessed Are They..."
by Fr. James Turro
Originally published in November 1995
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.