There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Trio of Longing
Light me a candle.
I want to burst into flame.
The words I’m looking for don’t exist,
so I will have to make a language of my own,
if only to render more precisely
the sweetness and suffering of my soul.
…
Close your eyes to me, my love.
Hide your face, if you wish.
But lift your chin
the merest inch
and you’ll be struck by the beauty
you pretended never to see.
…
Call my name
and I will come
from far away,
slowly, shyly,
like a reluctant wave
on the untroubled sea.
But call my name
a second time,
and I will crash onto shore,
sparing not a single second
to be joined with you
at last.
Losing Someone You Loved
How can I begin to describe the pain of losing someone you loved?
Not only loved, but loved with the full force of your being, leaving nothing unsurrendered.
There will always be reminders of this pain – which is really a sorrow – when you touch upon the places in your heart that bring you back to that person and place and time.
Yes, there will remain places of your self that remember the sadness and difficulty of lost hopes and dreams.
And the sweetness of remembered joys will strike you, sometimes, with a sense of beauty that will never be repeated – at least not in that particular way.
There will be pain, and there will be the ache of an unfulfilled desire – but only when you allow yourself to doubt the possibility that something greater is still to come.
Certainly, there are no words that will capture the fullness and intensity and depth of your encounters with love – of your encounters with this person who was (and is) so beloved to you.
And yet, even in the darkness, there is light – a discovery which will most likely unfold only once you’ve accepted things as they are (or seem to be). And then, after a while, you’ll start to recover a semblance of joy, for it was joy that first made you love, and it will be joy that leads you, after a very long and tiring journey, back home.
Brief Thoughts (No. 31)
You want to escape the boundaries of convention and blaze your own trail. That’s the spirit of the adventurer in you – the spirit that responds to the call of the wild, the thrill of the unknown.
That’s not to say that convention lacks appeal for you – you know its virtues and its charms. But there is truth to be found outside these walls, as well as inside them, so don’t be afraid to turn your gaze to the wider world, so long as you keep your heart fixed on Him.
The Shortest Route to Heaven
If you’re looking for the shortest route to Heaven, choose the simple way.
The simple way is about holding to what is good and letting go of the rest.
When you start to follow the simple way – which asks of you Trust and Surrender – you will begin to feel freer and lighter, because you are letting the grace of GOD do much of the work in your stead.
Your role in this simple way is to assent to the things GOD has given you – and refuse to wear yourself down with extraneous or unhelpful things.
For a soul who is called by this way, it may feel more difficult to surrender than to control – more difficult to trust than to worry.
But the GOD Who asks you to follow this way has intended this path for your good, knowing that simplicity and freedom are the keys to your soul’s being fully alive.
To complicate such a soul with worry and torment is anathema to this way of life.
You must take care to shake off such encumbrances and impediments to simplicity before they take you in their grip. But even then, when the complication seems immense and too deeply entrenched, the way out is to pick up and follow the simplest way home.
You will discover the great beauty of this path as soon as you begin walking it.
Why not trust and see?
