spring

Composers know how to use harmony and melody like a net to catch beauty's colors and radiance. And when we like what we hear, we open our pores to take in more – just as we close them against what seems ugly or offensive. Isn't that why we remember so vividly the hours or days spent in places we love, perhaps in the mountains or by the sea, where all our senses were awake?

Where is beauty located? Everywhere we recognize it: the pattern is in us. Beauty is the name we give our response to the perfection we sense around us, and within us.

Love in action is the answer to every problem in our lives and in this world. Love in action is the force that helped us make it to this place, and it's the truth that will set us free.

There is a love that is at the core of creation, a love that is born of oneness and carries the sacred interrelationship of all life. This love is alive within the hearts of those who love the Source of all life; its music is the song of the soul and the hidden purpose of creation. There is a wonder in this love, as well as a terror and beauty. Its wonder and terror come from its unconstricted nature, its limitless freedom; its beauty is a reflection of the face of God.

Nor can that endure
Which has not its foundations upon love,
For love alone diminishes not, but shines with its own light,
Makes an end of discord, softens the fires of hate,
Restores peace in the world,
Brings together the sundered, redresses wrong,
Aids all and injures none.
And who so invokes its aid will find peace and safety,
And have no fear of future ill.

"What is love, my friends?" he asked, opening his arms as though he wished to embrace us. "What is love? It is not simply compassion, not simply kindness. In compassion there are two: the one who suffers and the one who feels compassion. In kindness there are two: the one who gives and the one who receives. But in love there is only one; the two join, unite, become inseparable. The I and the you vanish. To love means to lose oneself in the beloved. "

Each individual who conquers the panic of their nightmare, who faces up to the terror of evil, and thereby discovers a goodness which heals and cannot be destroyed, brings fresh love into the world. The deepening of their capacity for love will first heal their own wound, and then go further, extending its gentle influence upon family, friends, and out to the world.

Be silent.
Be still.
Your God only wants to
Look upon you
With love.
Quiet. Still be.
Let your God ... Love you.

We are made for loving. If we don't love,
we will be like plants without water.

Listen, my heart: love God ceaselessly
As the fish loveth water:
The deeper the water
The happier and more tranquil the fish.
God alone knoweth the suffering
Of fish separated from the waters.

I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day,
with the consequence
of love.