Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1 Time and Eternity -- Beginnings -- Elizabeth Bishop: An Unconventional Life -- 2 The Fall -- Ashes, Ashes… -- The Fortunate Fall -- The Prodigal -- Roosters -- New, Tender, and Quick -- 3 Love and Longing -- Putting Love into Action -- The Filling Station -- Comic Relief -- Mysteries Are Not to Be Solved -- Infant Sight -- 4 Suffering Meaning -- The Nature of Things -- The Dark Night of the Soul -- The End of the Road -- A Comic Interlude -- At the Fishhouses -- 5 Blessed Are the Poor -- Unreasonable Charity -- The Dignity of Affliction -- I-Thou -- Critical Practices -- The Still, Small Voice -- Wit's Wisdom -- 6 Assent -- Jacob's Ladder -- Nothing but Plenty -- Dividing the Heart -- Coming Together -- Otherworldliness -- Good to Eat a Thousand Years -- Works Cited -- About the Author -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y.