spring

Gracious words are like a honey-comb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

I worry about the tyranny of language which is incapable of containing mystery.

The language we use reflects and in turn shapes the way we construct our experience of the world. (Plaskow acknowledges that)...all of these images of God are humanly crafted metaphors, but our metaphors emerge out of specific cultural and political context. When these contexts change, the old metaphors must change with them.

It is all too easy and too simple to disdain as "superstition" everything one cannot understand, but the ancients themselves knew very well what they meant when they used symbolic language...the Spirit can always come back to breathe fresh life into the symbols and rites and give them back their lost meaning and the fullness of their original virtue.

There is an incline from silence to language, to the truth of the word; and the gravitational force of this incline pushes truth on still further from language down into the active life of the world.

one
unkind
word
could
tip
the
balance

Rumi said that all words are fingers pointing to the moon, and we think the words are the moon. But because of the light, the light of love, the energy and motion that have called us to prayer, bits of this deeper reality are perceivable, and little bits of it will have to do.

The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members, a heart of grace, and a soul generated by love.

The warmth provided by our capacity to love is as necessary for the soul's growth as any part of the meditational way... Love increases as we look out for the strangers and welcome them and particularly as we work at trying to transform our enemies into friends. Steadily the warmth that is given by this kind of action draws the soul toward the reality of the loving God. Step by step the soul's reach grows, so that it becomes easier to find the One who is Love and to carry more Love out actively to others.

Winding down a path unknown
With souls entwined together
Staying in the dark recesses of the
underworld, waiting patiently
Until that which has been forgotten
Can be remembered
And once remembered, can be healed.