[Effortlessly]

Effortlessly,
Love flows from God into man,
Like a bird
Who rivers the air
Without moving her wings.
Thus we move in His world,
One in body and soul,
Though outwardly separate in form.
As the Source strikes the note,
Humanity sings–
The Holy Spirit is our harpist,
And all strings
Which are touched in Love
Must sound.


--Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1297), German mystic author, poet, and monastic, translated by Jane Hirshfield

Scriptural reference: Acts 2:1-21 The Feast of Pentecost

Image: The Spirit Searches, by Donn Shasteen, acrylic on wood tryptich

Hymn

If to distant lands I scatter
If I sail to farthest seas
Would you find and firm and gather
'til I only dwell in Thee?

If I flee from greenest pastures
Would you leave to look for me?
Forfeit glory to come after
'Til I only dwell in Thee

If my heart has one ambition
If my soul one goal to seek
This my solitary vision
'til I only dwell in Thee

That I only dwell in Thee
'Til I only dwell in Thee

-- Brooke Fraser, New-Zealand singer-songwriter and Christian

What you hold, may you always hold

What you hold, may you always hold.
What you do, may you do and never abandon.
But with swift pace, light step,
     unswerving feet,
     so that even your steps stir no dust,
go forward
    securely, joyfully, and swiftly,
on the path of prudent happiness,
    believing nothing
    agreeing with nothing
    which would dissuade you from this resolution
    or which would place a stumbling block for you on the way,
so that you may offer your vows to the Most High
in the pursuit of that perfection
to which the Spirit of the Lord has called you.

-- St. Clare of Assisi (1194-1253) Italian monastic, abbess, follower of St. Francis, and founder of the Order of San Domino (later the Order of Saint Clare)

There Is A Light Within You

I've said many things, but at the heart
of them all is this: There is a light
within you, in your soul, uncreated
and uncreatable; it simply is. If you wish to know yourself,
look for this light in the dark;
it is ever present, even when
you've lost sight of it. Look
away from what you think
you are, and look deeper into
the darkness that is within. There you'll find that light
which is ever radiant,
even if no one—not
even you—notices.

--Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) German Dominican academic, theologian, preacher, and mystic, from Meister Eckhart's Book of Darkness & Light: Meditations on the Path of the Wayless Way, 2023, edited by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows.

God Speaks to the Soul

God speaks to the soul
And God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me.
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected.

--Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1292), Medieval German mystic and poet

The Soul's Expression

With stammering lips and insufficient sound.
I strive and struggle to deliver right

That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling, interwound,
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and height,
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground!
The song of soul I struggle to outwear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
And utter all myself into the air:
But if I did it,-- as the thunder-roll
Braeks its own cloud,-- my flesh would perish there,
Before that dread apocalypse of soul.

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), Romantic-era British poet, author, and activist, spouse of Robert Browning

We Awaken in Christ's Body

We awaken in Christ’s body, even as Christ

awakens our languishing bodies. And look!
My poor hand is Christ, the very hand of Christ.
And look! He enters my foot, and becomes
without conclusion, me. I reach out my hand and, full
of wonder, my hand becomes Christ, becomes
all of him—for he remains indivisibly whole,
without separation from his eternal holiness.
I take one step, my foot advancing, and look!
He is revealed as a flash of lightning, there
proceeding with my lowly foot.
Do you think I blaspheme? Then open
your heart to him, and receive the one who is ever
opening to you, and opening ever so deeply.
If we love him as we say, we wake up
in his body, even here, where our own bodies, entire,
every lash and atom, the honored and the dishonored,
are realized as his, are realized as him. And look!
He makes us—at long last—utterly real, and everything
that is hurt, all that has appeared to us as dark, as broken,
diseased, shameful, ugly, irreparably torn
is in him transfigured, and is revealed as whole,
lovely, illumined with and by and in his light.
And look, we rise from our long sleep, bearing the beloved
with our every step.


--Saint Simeon the New Theologian, 10th century

Ohne Warum (Without Why)

The rose is without why
She blooms because she blooms
She does not care for herself
Asks not if she is seen

--Angelus Silesius (1624-1677) German mystic and poet, convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism, follower of Meister Eckhart, quotes in John O'Donohue, Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdom for a Modern World

On Children

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that his arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
He also loves the bow that is stable.

--Khalil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese-American artist, painter, writer, and poet, from The Prophet, 1923

O Comforting Fire of Spirit

O comforting fire of Spirit,
Life, within the very Life of all Creation.
Holy you are in giving life to All. 

 Holy you are in anointing
those who are not whole;
Holy you are in cleansing
a festering wound.

O sacred breath,
O fire of love,
O sweetest taste in my breast
which fills my heart
with a fine aroma of virtues.

O most pure fountain
through whom it is known
that God has united strangers
and inquired after the lost.

O breastplate of life
and hope of uniting
all members as One,
O sword-belt of honor,
enfold those who offer blessing.

Care for those
who are imprisoned by the enemy
and dissolve the bonds of those
whom Divinity wishes to save.

O mightiest path which penetrates All,
from the height to every Earthly abyss,
you compose All, you unite All.

Through you clouds stream, ether flies,
stones gain moisture,
waters become streams,
and the earth exudes Life.

You always draw out knowledge,
bringing joy through Wisdom's inspiration.

Therefore, praise be to you
who are the sound of praise
and the greatest prize of Life,
who are hope and richest honor
bequeathing the reward of Light.

--Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) German abbess, composer, musician, theologian, mystic, and poet

We put aside all we are

We put aside all that we are:
we cleave to all that Gos is:
we will bear all that troubles us, for His glory.

O God! help us to worship You
after Your mind and not after our own.
Help us to forget ourselves
and live only for your glory.
Help us to accept gratefully
our weaknesses and inadequacy
and forget them in adoring only You.

The Lord is in His holy temple:
let all the earth keep silence before Him.
We will enter into your gates with thanksgiving, O God,
and into your courts with praise.
We will lift up our souls in Your name
and bless You while we live.

O come, let us worship and bow down:
let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.
For He is our God.
We are the people of His pasture
and the sheep of His hand.

It is a good thing to give thanks
to the Lord Most High,
to show forth Your loving-kindness in the morning
and Your faithfulness every night.

This is the day which the Lord has made:
we will rejoice and be glad in it:
we laid us down in peace and slept:
we awaked for the Lord sustained us.
Glory be to You, O Lord!

Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who has made heaven and earth:
blessed be the name of the Lord,
from this time forth and for evermore.

--Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941), in Evelyn Underhill's Prayer Book, ed. by Evelyn Underhill, English mystic and spiritual teacher

Power is Safest in the Poet's Hands

Power is safest in the poet's hands, thus for the poet

God will

pose.

The realms of thought, sublimely wild, the finest pigments of

ground suns, the violin's divine plea for a 

true friend;

what is all this world has seen from art: the shadow more true and

glorious there

than in the cage where there is often talk of right and wrong.

The reins of God say to his lover,

"Hold me in your mouth, dear,

as you toil with all your limbs and strength

to free the magnificence

in man."

The reins of the Sky sing,

"Grab hold, and you will know God

lowers His cup into you

to drink."

--Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz (ca 1320-1389), Persian mystic poet, from Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West, Daniel Ladinsky, ed.

The Place of Rest

The soul is its own witness and its own refuge.

Unto the deep the deep heart goes,
It lays its sadness nigh the breast:
Only the Mighty Mother knows
The wounds that quiver unconfessed.

It seeks a deeper silence still;
It folds itself around with peace,
Where thoughts alike of good or ill
In quietness unfostered cease.

It feels in the unwounding vast
For comfort for its hopes and fears:
The Mighty Mother bows at last;
She listens to her children’s tears.

Where the last anguish deepens — there
The fire of beauty smites through pain:
A glory moves amid despair,
The Mother takes her child again.

--AE (George William Russell) (1867-1935), Irish poet, painter, nationalist, and mystic