The gift of love is nothing short of a miracle, and the same is true for the experience of the singer who works with prayer: sung prayer is one of the many ways in which love is made audible and brought into the fullness of life... In sung prayer, one must risk burning and one must risk soaring, nothing less. Whether one falls in love or whether one sings in love, surrender is to be and to radiate love. In the case of the musician, this is done through the medium of music. In the case of the truly musical person, this can even be achieved through a silence which radiates interior harmony and, by extension, brings peace to those surrounding them.
What is one to do with such moments, such memories, but cherish them? Who knows what is beyond the known? And if you think that any day the secret of light might come, would you not keep the house of your mind ready? Would you not cleanse your study of all that is cheap, or trivial? Would you not live in continual hope, and pleasure, and excitement?
~ Mary Oliver in WINTER HOURS: PROSE, PROSE POEMS, AND POEMS