I Am Eros

In the beginning
I am in the void, I am in the nothingness,
Moving, stirring, anticipating.
In the beginning,
I am pregnant with potential. I am birthing
Moving, stirring anticipating.
In the beginning,
I am the hum of the universe. I am the singing. I am the song
Humming, vibrating, anticipating.
In the beginning,
I am the maestro. I am the composer. I am the singer.
I sing the sun and moon into being. The stars begin to dance.
In the beginning
I am the song of the universe. I am the musician of the heart.
I hum into being the bubbling brooks and fragrant flowers.
In the beginning, in the void
I move and the birds and insects dance in flight.
In the beginning, in the potential
I stir the life force into clay and humanity leaps.
In the beginning, in the hum
I anticipate all creation unfolding, exploding with birthing power,
Multiplying exponentially.
Life begets life, music begets music, and
Dancing always leads to ecstasy.
I am ecstasy. I am the quickened breath in the silence before creation.
Ecstatic union is my art form. Pleasure is my name.
You I desire. You I hold and love.
I long to pour myself through your body, to cover you, to dwell in your soul.
I will bless you. I am your source of bliss.
Come to me. Love me. Sing with me. Let us create life as we hum together.
Come, be the song.
Come, be the dance with me. Be life with me.
Come laugh. Come dance.
You can do nothing less. You are mine.
I in you and you in Me.
Come.

~Beverly Dane

He returned to our heart

And he departed from our sight that we might
return to our heart, and there find Him. For
He departed, and behold, He is here.
~St Augustine

Resurrection from death

Receive every day as a resurrection from death,
as a new enjoyment of life; meet every rising
sun with such sentiments of God's goodness, as
if you had seen it, and all things, new-created
upon your account: and under the sense of so
great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise
and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.
- William Law

Equanimity

Mindfulness practice provides the foundation for love to become a true spiritual path. The ability to concentrate allows us to focus our minds even in times of emotional stress, and equanimity refines our ability to remain a friendly audience to any and all experiences. Equanimity can itself be known as love because it is the matter-of-fact, gentle acceptance of things just as they are. I often teach that relational love equals equanimity plus knowledge of the beloved. Equanimity allows us to relax and keep open, and concentration refines our ability to pay attention to our beloved's words, needs, feelings and gestures, and to remember them. Together, equanimity and concentration are the necessary supports for any communication or listening skills we attempt to bring to conflict resolution; without mindfulness our skills fall apart when we are triggered into habitual reactive patterns.

~Polly Young-Eisendrath

Passion is a kind of waiting

Passion is a kind of waiting - waiting for what other
people are going to do. Jesus went to Jerusalem to
announce the good news to the people of that city. And
Jesus knew that he was going to put a choice before
them: "Will you be my disciple, or will you be my
executioner?" There is no middle ground here. Jesus went
to Jerusalem to put people in a situation where they had
to say "Yes" or "No." That is the great drama of Jesus'
passion: he had to wait upon how people were going to
respond. How would they come? To betray him or to follow
him? In a way, his agony is not simply the agony of
approaching death. It is also the agony of having to wait.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen, "A Spirituality of Waiting"

Potential

"Your essence itself knows already all there is to know. It understands and already is more than anyone can speak of. Already, in your potential, you surpass the wise sayings of any guru, enlightened one, or prophet. These people can startle, provoke or point you towards your essence, but they must then back away, and shade their eyes - for your essence outshines them."

~Simon Parke, The Beautiful Life

The Problem with Language

It is a defect in language that words suggest permanent realities and people do not see through this deception. But mere words cannot create reality. Thus people speak of a final goal and believe it is real, but it is a form of words and the goal as such is without substance. The one who realizes the emptiness of objects and concepts does not depend on words. Perfect wisdom is beyond definition, and pathlessness is the way to it. The wise one treads this path for the direct realization of understanding. This, then, is perfect wisdom. Such a one should tread this path knowing that attachment and attractions are neither good nor harmful, even enlightenment is neither good nor harmful, because perfect wisdom is not meant to promote good or harm for that person. However, even though there is no intention of good or harm, it does confer endless blessing.

~Prajnaparamita

Patience

"confusion and doubt

can fill my heart so easily.

until I close my eyes and think

of my love for You.

clarity and courage come into focus -

and I wait for your return."

~terri st. cloud

The Standard

We must get rid of the pestilent, deadly notion that the
amount of things we get through is the standard. The
steadiness with which we radiate God is the standard.
- Evelyn Underhill

How Much Is Enough?

"A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help. Therefore the ideal of creating an unlimited number of wants and satisfying them seems to be a delusion and a snare." ~Mahatma Ghandi

An Aspect of Grace

"maybe grace is figuring out it's not

all about you.

that people are doing what they're

doing for their own reasons.

not yours.

and maybe grace is accepting that."

~terri st. cloud

Looking at the source

Christianity seems at first to be all about morality,
all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet
it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond.
One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk
of those things, except perhaps as a joke. Every one
there is filled full with what we should call goodness
as a mirror is filled with light. But they do not call
it goodness. They do not call it anything. They are not
thinking of it. They are too busy looking at the source
from which it comes.
- C. S. Lewis, "Into the Wardrobe"

Humility

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself
than of other people, nor does it mean having a
low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom
from thinking about yourself one way or the other
at all.
- William Temple

The Human Condition?

"A spirtual life has a peace and calmness about it. It is lived in harmony with the energy flows that underlie it. The first rule is energy in reserve. The second is that energy needs to be focused where it will have a disproportionate impact. Intuition is important in the process of deciding where to focus energy. Intuition requires a rested, relaxed mind. I've come to see my role as that of creating art and words that arise out of a peaceful place, a spiritual place. The problem is that I seem engaged in a continual cycle of falling out of sync with that peace. Eventually I find my way back, but there is a struggle going on. A struggle with myself? Or maybe this is just the human condition. If so, it is aggravated by a tendency to take on too many projects. When we take on too much, that is the exact time we most need a relaxed perspective. That's when a calmness, a returning to center, is needed so that we can find our way out of the maze." ~Rod MacIver

Tell God all

Tell God all that is in your heart, as one unloads
one's heart, its pleasures and its pains, to a dear
friend. Tell Him your troubles, that He may comfort you;
tell Him your joys, that He may sober them; tell Him
your longings, that He may purify them; tell Him your
dislikes, that He may help you conquer them; talk to Him
of your temptations, that He may shield you from them:
show Him the wounds of your heart, that He may heal them;
lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes
for evil, your instability. Tell Him how self-love makes
you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere,
how pride disguises you to yourself and others.
- Francois Fenelon

Where repentance is needed

Contrition, repentance, acknowledgement of personal
responsibility and sorrow over sin should never
include massive self-hatred and total self-rejection.
God's conviction points to a specific sin, it is
sharp and accurate, going straight to the point where
repentance is needed. Truly understanding this principle
will lead you into freedom from your past so you can
serve God and His people without the fetters of
constantly looking behind.
- Katherine Walden