Tenacity

Annie Dillard:

Once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to his throat. The supposition is that the eagle had pounced on the weasel and the weasel swiveled and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly won.

Dillard reflects:

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. . . . Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles.

--Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (Harper 1988), 66, 70 (HT: Kent Hughes, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus, 154-55)

'One thing have I asked of the LORD . . .' --Psalm 27:4

'One thing is necessary . . .' --Luke 10:42

'One thing I do . . .' --Philippians 3:13