Holy persons draw to themselves all that is earthly.

Every element has a sound, an original sound from the order of God; all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers.

Listen: there was once a king sitting on his throne. Around Him stood great and wonderfully beautiful columns ornamented with ivory, bearing the banners of the king with great honour. Then it pleased the king to raise a small feather from the ground, and he commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself but because the air bore it along. Thus am I, a feather on the breath of God.

O Eternal God, now may it please you to burn in love so that we become the limbs fashioned in the love you felt when you begot your Son at the first dawn before all creation. And consider this need which falls upon us, take it from us for the sake of your Son, and lead us to the joy of your salvation.

We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.

Holy persons draw to themselves all that is earthly.

When one's thoughts are neither frivolous nor flippant, when one's thoughts are neither stiff-necked nor stupid, but rather, are harmonious -- they habitually render physical calm and deep insight.