A Celebration of Love

February 13, 2007 · by Christine

Please Note: I added some more Lenten Resources in the post below, please keep the ideas coming for books to read or practices to take on. 

The ultimate Mystery of being, the ultimate Truth, is Love. This is the essential structure of reality. When Dante spoke of the ‘love which moves the sun and the other stars’, he was not using a metaphor, but was describing the nature of reality. There is in Being an infinite desire to give itself in love and this gift of Self in love is for ever answered by a return of love….and so the rhythm of the universe is created.
-Bede Griffiths, OSB

The day will come when after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
-Teilhard de Chardin

Messenger

My work is loving the world

Here the sunflowers
here the hummingbird
equal seekers of sweetness

Here the quickening yeast
there the blue plums
Here the clam
deep in the speckled sand

Are my boots old?
Is my coat torn?
Am I no younger young
and still not half perfect.

Let me keep my mind on
what matters
which is my work
which is mostly standing still
and learning to be astonished.

The phoebe, the delphinium
the sheep in the pasture
and the pasture

which is mostly rejoicing
since all the ingredients are here

which is gratitude
to begin in the mind
and a heart

and these body clothes
a mouth
with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth
and the wren
to the sleepy dug up clam.

telling them all
over and over
how it is that we live forever.

-Mary Oliver

Love as the structure of reality, love as the great force of the world waiting to be harnessed, love as my work in the world. . . really what more could I possibly say on the subject?  (rhetorical, but feel free to add on in the comments if you wish!)

Happy Valentine’s Day dear friends and readers! -Christine

Posted in Poetry |