Light of God

1:Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God's kingdom. ~ Leo the Great,

2:The true lovers are never free from striving; they revolve restlessly and ceaselessly around the light of God. And God consumes them, making them nothing, destroying the veil of their reason. ~ Jalaluddin Rumi,

3:The light of God which illumines an Angel enlightens him, and sets him on fire with love, for he is a spirit already prepared for the infusion of that light; but man, being impure and weak, is ordinarily enlightened in darkness, in distress and pain. ~ John of the Cross,

* WISDOM TROVE *

1:There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in. ~ elizabeth-gilbert, @wisdomtrove

2:You need to follow your own heart in light of God’s word and do what you feel is right and good for you. ~ joel-osteen, @wisdomtrove

3:Your mind is made up of light. We call it the dharmakaya, the clear light of reality. The transcendental eternal light is everywhere. It's the light of god or whatever you want to call it. ~ frederick-lenz, @wisdomtrove

4:Just behind the darkness of closed eyes shines the light of God. When you behold that light in meditation, hold onto it with devotional zeal. Feel yourself inside it: That is where God dwells. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove

5:The sun shines equally on diamond and charcoal, but the former has developed qualities that enable it to reflect the sunlight brilliantly, while the latter is unable to reflect the sunlight. Emulate the diamond in your dealings with people. Brightly reflect the light of God's love. ~ paramahansa-yogananda, @wisdomtrove

6:Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me? ~ albert-schweitzer, @wisdomtrove

7:Creation was given to people as a clean window through which the light of God could shine into people's souls. Sun and moon, night and day, rain, sea, the crops, the flowering tree, all these things were transparent. They spoke to people not of themselves but only of Him who made them. Nature was symbolic. But the progressive degradation of humans led them further and further from this truth. Nature became opaque. ~ thomas-merton, @wisdomtrove

* NEWFULLDB 2.4M *

1:Woman is the light of God. ~ Rumi,

2:possessed by the pure and simple light of God, ~ Juan de la Cruz,

3:Through study we welcome the light of God into our minds. ~ Brian D McLaren,

4:Each and every person has the light of God within,” she said. ~ Stephen Cope,

5:Behind every shadow of life is the great light of God. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,

6:We live, move, breathe, and having our being in the Love-Light of God ~ Gary Eby,

7:Consciousness, fully awake to itself, is the Light of God. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,

8:Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,

9:Light of star gives light on space.
Light of God gives birth to all stars. ~ Toba Beta,

10:It often takes the darkness of a storm to show us the light of God's presence. ~ Tony Evans,

11:Asking in prayer helps you to see your problem in the light of God's power. ~ Elizabeth George,

12:Asking in prayer helps you to see your problem in the light of God’s power. ~ Elizabeth George,

13:There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert,

14:Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness. ~ C J Mahaney,

15:In light of God’s deep affection, we no longer have to live in fear of rejection. The ~ Lysa TerKeurst,

16:Advent is a journey towards Bethlehem. May we let ourselves be drawn by the light of God made man. ~ Pope Francis,

17:Sin scorches us most after it comes under the scrutinizing light of God's forgiveness and not before ~ Karl Barth,

18:While there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight - I'll fight to the very end! ~ William Booth,

19:You need to follow your own heart in light of God’s word and do what you feel is right and good for you. ~ Joel Osteen,

20:The rewards of life and devotion to God are love and inner rapture, and the capacity to receive the light of God. ~ Rumi,

21:It's not my light to begin with, in a sense; it's the light of God, the light of eternity. So take all you want! ~ Frederick Lenz,

22:To pray is to walk in the full light of God, and to say simply, without holding back, ‘I am human and you are God. ~ Philip Yancey,

23:He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,

24:Don't worry about anything. Pray about everything. . . Put your hands together and point your soul toward the light of God. ~ Andrew Klavan,

25:Based on our natural heritage as the Divine Light of God, every one of us possesses intuition... defined as the language of the soul. ~ James Van Praagh,

26:Your inner glow comes from the light of God, and your light can never be extinguished or soiled. You are eternally bright and beautiful. ~ Doreen Virtue,

27:Your level is above the reach of the devil... Keep it in mind; as long as you are in the light of God, you bind him (the devil) tight! ~ Israelmore Ayivor,

28:You have to look for the joy. Look for the light of God that is hitting your life, and you will find sparkles you didn't know were there. ~ Barbara Johnson,

29:Every luminary in the constellation of human greatness, like the stars, comes out in the darkness to shine with the reflected light of God. ~ Mary Baker Eddy,

30:What we do in the crisis always depends on whether we see the difficulties in the light of God, or God in the shadow of the difficulties. ~ G Campbell Morgan,

31:No matter how outlandishly audacious your prayers might sound in your own ears, they are nothing in light of God's willingness and ability to answer. ~ Leslie Ludy,

32:Glow wherever you go and let the light of God reflect in the world around you. You carry the light of God and wherever you pass, darkness must flee. ~ Israelmore Ayivor,

33:True humility comes when, in the, light of God, we have seen ourselves to be nothing, have consented to part with and cast away self, to let God be all. ~ Andrew Murray,

34:Who we truly are is who God created us to be. That’s what’s most important. Our true identity is seen in light of God. He determines the destiny of our life. ~ Louie Giglio,

35:The aim of moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment, till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God. Someone ~ Abu Hamid al-Ghazali,

36:The light which shines in the eye is really the light of the heart.. The light which fills the heart is the light of God, which is pure and separate from the light of intellect and sense. ~ Rumi,

37:The true lover is never free from striving, they revolve restlessly and ceaselessly around the light of God. And God consumes them, making them nothing, destroying the veil of their reason. ~ Rumi,

38:In short, their malice is a veil to hinder them from observing the light of God; their obstinacy renders them harder than stones, so that they never suffer themselves to be subdued. ~ John Calvin,

39:Intuitive knowledge is an illumination of the soul, whereby it beholds in the light of God those things which it pleases Him to reveal to us by a direct impression of divine clearness. ~ Rene Descartes,

40:The fires of hell may be made of the very love of God, experienced as torture by those who hate him: the very light of God's truth, hated and fled from in vain by those who love darkness. ~ Peter Kreeft,

41:Your mind is made up of light. We call it the dharmakaya, the clear light of reality. The transcendental eternal light is everywhere. It's the light of god or whatever you want to call it. ~ Frederick Lenz,

42:We will not because we cannot, and we cannot because we are new creatures who are no longer able to live without the light of God’s presence or to endure the darkness and filth of this age. ~ Paul David Washer,

43:Just behind the darkness of closed eyes shines the light of God. When you behold that light in meditation, hold onto it with devotional zeal. Feel yourself inside it: That is where God dwells. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,

44:With every righteous action, we prepare the way for the New Earth on which righteousness will dwell. And bringing justice to those who suffer violence means to bring the light of God's future to them. ~ Jurgen Moltmann,

45:106. A GREAT CITADEL The most likely allegory is that the Citadel represents philosophy (that is, human reason without the light of God) surrounded by seven walls which represent the seven liberal arts, ~ Dante Alighieri,

46:Godliness means responding to God’s revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service. Life must be seen and lived in the light of God’s Word. This, and nothing else, is true religion. ~ J I Packer,

47:A shadow of self-doubt had been cast over my thoughts and emotions when I turned my attention away from God’s perspective and promises. By taking my eyes off the light of God’s truth, I ended up paralyzed by the darkness of defeat. ~ Renee Swope,

48:FIRST CIRCLE. Here they find the VIRTUOUS PAGANS. They were born without the light of Christ’s revelation, and, therefore, they cannot come into the light of God, but they are not tormented. Their only pain is that they have no hope. ~ Dante Alighieri,

49:Once you have the light of God within you, you see things within yourself that you did not know existed. Things that were hidden in darkness are now in light. I see myself as able to forgive... to love... I even see talents in myself that I didn't see before. ~ Tasha Smith,

50:Shadows in a cave are given to change. They dance and flicker with ever-changing shape and brightness. To contemplate the truly holy and to go beyond the surface of creaturely things, we need to get out of our self-made cave and walk in the glorious light of God's holiness. ~ R C Sproul,

51:The sun shines equally on diamond and charcoal, but one has developed qualities that enable it to reflect the sunlight brilliantly, while the other absorbs all the sunlight. Emulate the diamond in your dealings with people. Brightly reflect the light of God's love. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,

52:God's purpose for man is to acquire a seeing eye and an understanding heart." "God gave you life and bestowed upon you his attributes; eventually you will return to him." "The rewards of life and devotion to God are love and inner rapture, and the capacity to receive the light of God. ~ Rumi,

53:Shadows are created all around us whenever something blocks the light. And so it is with the shadow of doubt. When we focus on how inadequate we feel, or what others are thinking about us, we cast a shadow of doubt in our minds by blocking the light of God’s truth in our hearts. ~ Renee Swope,

54:Because its myriad glimmering plumes Like a great army's stir and wave; Because its golden billows blooms, The poor man's barren walks to lave: Because its sun-shaped blossoms show How souls receive the light of God, And unto earth give back that glow I thank him for the Goldenrod. ~ Lucy Larcom,

55:It is a myth that man in his natural state is genuinely seeking God. Men do seek God. But they do not seek him for who he is. They seek him in a pinch as one who might preserve them from death or enhance their worldly enjoyments. Apart from conversion, no one comes to the light of God. ~ John Piper,

56:I want to open myself. ... I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus. I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil. I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil. I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil! ~ Abigail Williams,

57:I AM the violet flame In action in me now I AM the violet flame To Light alone I bow I AM the violet flame In mighty cosmic power I AM the light of God Shining every hour I AM the violet flame Blazing like a sun I AM God’s sacred power Freeing every one ~ Elizabeth Clare Prophet,

58:The sun shines equally on diamond and charcoal, but the former has developed qualities that enable it to reflect the sunlight brilliantly, while the latter is unable to reflect the sunlight. Emulate the diamond in your dealings with people. Brightly reflect the light of God's love. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda,

59:Your life is something opaque, not transparent, as long as you look at it in an ordinary human way. But if you hold it up against the light of God's goodness, it shines and turns transparent, radiant and bright. And then you ask yourself in amazement: Is this really my own life I see before me? ~ Albert Schweitzer,

60:Even when there are clouds, we still have the sun. So the light of God also shines upon His children even in difficult times. As surely as we know that the sun will rise, we can depend on the light of God. Ensure that you receive it in the morning—then you can count on it to remain with you all day long. ~ Andrew Murray,

61:Glorify a lie, legalize a lie, arm and equip a lie, consecrate a lie with solemn forms and awful penalties, and after all it is nothing but a lie. It rots a land and corrupts a people like any other lie, and by and by the white light of God's truth shines clear through it, and shows it to be a lie. ~ Edwin Hubbel Chapin,

62:Welcome, O Goldfinch! Come joyously. Be eager to act, and come as the fire. When you have burnt up your attachments the light of God will manifest itself more and more. Since your heart knows the secrets of God, remain faithful. When you have perfected yourself you will no longer exist.
But God will remain. ~ Attar of Nishapur,

63:God has spoken to man, and the Bible is his Word, given to us to make us wise unto salvation... Godliness means responding to God's revelation in trust and obedience, faith and worship, prayer and praise, submission and service. Life must be seen and lived in the light of God's Word. This, and nothing else, is true religion. ~ J I Packer,

64:To pine for an alternative past is a waste of energy. In the pristine world of your infinite spiritual self, there is no sin or negative energy. There is only compassion, learning, and unconditional love and forgiveness. Remind yourself and those around you of this fact. In the light of God, everything is healed and seen to be perfect. ~ Stuart Wilde,

65:Once, long ago, Parminder had told Barry the story of Bhai Kanhaiya, the Sikh hero who had administered to the needs of those wounded in combat, whether friend or fo. When asked why he gave aid indiscriminately, Bahai Kanhaiya had replied that the light of God shone from every soul, and that he had been unable to distinguish between them. ~ J K Rowling,

66:While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight While little children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight While men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight While there is a drunkard left, While there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, While there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight-I'll fight to the very end! ~ William Booth,

67:I wish you health, peace, and prosperity; but, above all, that your souls may prosper; that you may still prefer the light of God’s countenance to your chief joy; that you may still delight yourselves in the Lord; be daily hungering and thirsting after him, and daily receiving from his fullness, even grace for grace; that you may rejoice in his all-sufficiency.36 ~ Tony Reinke,

68:Your mind is reason, your heart is your conscience, and in your heart - you will find truth. This is why Truth is always recognized first by the heart. Our minds are simply there to reason with our conscience. The only thinking that matters is that which passes through the heart. Your heart is what connects you to the light of God. He who acts through his heart, truly stands by God. ~ Suzy Kassem,

69:On every occasion of uneasiness, we should retire to prayer, that we may give place to the grace and light of God and then form our resolutions, without being in any pain about what success they may have. In the greatest temptations, a single look to Christ, and the barely pronouncing his name, suffices to overcome the wicked one, so it be done with confidence and calmness of spirit. ~ John Wesley,

70:Wouldst thou know my meaning? Lie down in the Fire See and taste the Flowing Godhead through thy being; Feel the Holy Spirit Moving and compelling Thee within the Flowing Fire and Light of God. [1815.jpg] -- from German Mystical Writings: Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme, and others, Edited by Karen J. Campbell

~ Mechthild of Magdeburg, Wouldst thou know my meaning?
,

71:Isaiah prophesied that those living in the land of deep darkness would see a dawning light (see Isaiah 9:2). We need to remember that promise whenever we live with a painful sense of discouragement, despair, anxiety or fear. We can be sure that these things have nothing to do with the dawning light of God’s kingdom. As he did with Job, God will eventually bring us out of the darkest places of our lives. ~ Anonymous,

72:The man in whom God rests and who rests in God must reflect the infinity of the conscious light of God; the infinity of God must become proper to man, by grace. That is what is meant by the divinization of man in God and the humanization of God in man. It is the union of God and man in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of light: the illuminating Spirit of God becomes the Spirit who illuminates man by grace. ~ Dumitru St niloae,

73:Dear God, May this house be a sacred dwelling for those who live here. May those who visit feel the peace we have received from You. May darkness not enter. May the light of God shield this house from harm. May the angels bring their peace here and use our home as a haven of light. May all grow strong in this place of healing, our sanctuary from the loudness of the world. May it so be used by You forever. ~ Marianne Williamson,

74:Creation was given to people as a clean window through which the light of God could shine into people's souls. Sun and moon, night and day, rain, sea, the crops, the flowering tree, all these things were transparent. They spoke to people not of themselves but only of Him who made them. Nature was symbolic. But the progressive degradation of humans led them further and further from this truth. Nature became opaque. ~ Thomas Merton,

75:Shadows are created all around us whenever something blocks the light. And so it is with the shadow of doubt. When we focus on how inadequate we feel, or what others are thinking about us, we cast a shadow of doubt in our minds by blocking the light of God’s truth in our hearts. Yet we were not designed to block the light or to be the light. We were created to live in the light, by finding our confidence in what God thinks about us. ~ Renee Swope,

76:Man must begin to the unitary principle of man - knowing that there are not separate men or separate individuals, but hat the whole man idea is one. He must know that all mankind is connected with every other part of mankind, all geared together by the one omnipresent Light of God which centers all as ONE and motivates all as ONE. Until man knows that separation from God is impossible, even for one second, he does not begin to have knowledge. ~ Walter Russell,

77:A room may be in darkness for thousands of years, but if a light is brought into it, in that very instant the darkness vanishes.
"So is it with sin. You cannot drive sin out of the mind any more than you can beat darkness out of a room with a stick. By concentration on delusion, indeed, you may only increase its hold on your mind. Bring in the light of God, however, through deep meditation and devotion, and the darkness will vanish as though it had never been. ~ Swami Kriyananda,

78:Perceptions are not reality. How you perceive your life, your value, and your destiny doesn't give you the whole picture. You may be seeing yourself and your significance dimly. But your self-perception determines in large measure the way your life will go.... It is vital that those deep questions at the core of your being are answered with truth. Dim or mistaken perceptions that aren't in keeping with reality must be challenged and corrected by the light of God's Word. ~ Chip Ingram,

79:The Beatitudes reveal the profile of the Christian, the character of the one who has had a life-changing encounter with the grace of God. In light of God's overwhelming goodness, the sinner sees his own poverty of spirit and mourns not only for his own sin but also for the spiritual sickness of the world. Therefore, he grows meek and longs for all the more earnestly for true righteousness. Therefore, he practices mercy and enjoys purity and makes peace. Therefore, he gladly endures persecution for the sake of Jesus. ~ R W Glenn,

80:Prayer does not blind us to the world, but it transforms our vision of the world, and makes us see it, all men, and all the history of mankind, in the light of God. To pray 'in spirit and in truth' enables us to enter into contact with that infinite love, that inscrutable freedom which is at work behind the complexities and the intricacies of human existence. This does not mean fabricating for ourselves pious rationalizations to explain everything that happens. It involves no surreptitious manipulation of the hard truths of life. ~ Thomas Merton,

81:All of man's ills are due to his lack of knowing God within him. The perfection of God's universe is founded upon its perfection of Balance. All of man's ills are caused by toxic poisons generated in his body through unbalance affecting his power of control over the functions of his electric body. Man, as an extension of God, is creator of his own electric body. He is master of his electric body to the extent of his knowing the Light of God in him. ... God says to man: »What I do, ye shall do«, but man is unbelieving for long ages. ~ Walter Russell,

82:Sometimes we simply don't want to face the truth about ourselves; the myth reads so much better. Sometimes we do not seek help because it will mean we have to change, and change is painful and unpredictable. To me, now, faith is bringing all that is true about our lives into the blinding light of God's grace. It is believing that He will still be there at the end of the journey, and so will we, perhaps a little bloodied, probably with a limp, and possibly, as the Skin Horse said, with most of our hair loved off, but we will be there. ~ Sheila Walsh,

83:When did you feel most alive and energized? When did you feel drained, troubled, or agitated? Having reviewed the details of your day, confess what needs to be confessed. Allow God’s Spirit to bring you wholeness, grace and forgiveness. Finally, consider these questions: How will you live attentively in God’s love tomorrow? How can you structure your day in light of God’s presence, taking into account your own rhythms and responses to the movement of the Spirit? Ask for the grace to recognize the ways God makes his love known to you. ~ Sharon Garlough Brown,

84:I learned that one person hurting another really is like a hand curling into a fist to smash the foot. And that all that really matters is family and other people. And that the purpose of life is to find the Light of God, but not the light from some old guy with a beard sitting up there judging us. The light is the love we give each other on our way back home. And that God wouldn’t mind if we spent a little less time telling him how great he is and a little more time loving each other, and not just the people we’re supposed to love, but everyone. ~ Paul H Magid,

85:We can think of Lent as a time to eradicate evil or cultivate virtue, a time to pull up weeds or to plant good seeds. Which is better is clear, for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative. A person is great not by the ferocity of his hatred of evil, but by the intensity of his love for God. Asceticism and mortification are not the ends of a Christian life; they are only the means. The end is charity. Penance merely makes an opening in our ego in which the Light of God can pour. As we deflate ourselves, God fills us. And it is God’s arrival that is the important event. ~ Fulton J Sheen,

86:The highest wisdom is founded not on reason only, not on those worldly sciences, of physics, history, chemistry, etc., into which knowledge of the intellect is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The highest wisdom knows but one science-the science of the whole, the science that explains the whole creation and the place of man in it. To instil this science into one's soul, it is needful to purify and renew one's inner man, and so, before one can know, one must believe and be made perfect. And for the attainment of these aims there has been put into our souls the light of God, called conscience. ~ Leo Tolstoy,

87:The time has come in the history of man’s journey from his material jungle to his spiritual mountain top when it is imperative that he must live more and more in the cosmic Light universe of knowing, and less in the electric wave universe of sensing. Man must know that his power lies in the stillness of his centering Self and not in the motion by means of which he manifests that stillness. He must know that his Self is God in him. Also he must know gradually the dawning awareness of the cosmic Light of God in him, for with it comes an awareness of his purposefulness in manifesting the Light and the power to manifest it. ~ Walter Russell,

88:The only difference between nature and grace is this, that what the trees and the flowers do unconsciously, as they drink in the blessing of the light, is to be with us a voluntary and a loving acceptance. Faith, simple faith in God’s word and love, is to be the opening of the eyes, the opening of the heart, to receive and enjoy the unspeakable glory of His grace. And just as the trees, day by day, and month by month, stand and grow into beauty and fruitfulness, just welcoming whatever sunshine the sun may give, so it is the very highest exercise of our Christian life just to abide in the light of God, and let it, and let Him, fill us with the life and the brightness it brings. ~ Andrew Murray,

89:To be specific, the self-sins are self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins – egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion – are strangely tolerated Christian leaders, even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice. ~ A W Tozer,

90:To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the Church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice. ~ Anonymous,

91:But he could not, you cannot, read the lot of those who daily pass you by in the street. How do you know the wild romances of their lives; the trials, the temptations they are even now enduring, resisting, sinking under? You may be elbowed one instant by the girl desperate in her abandonment, laughing in mad merriment with her outward gesture, while her soul is longing for the rest of the dead, and bringing itself to think of the cold-flowing river as the only mercy of God remaining to her here. You may pass the criminal, meditating crimes at which you will to-morrow shudder with horror as you read them. You may push against one, humble and unnoticed, the last upon earth, who in heaven will for ever be in the immediate light of God's countenance. Errands of mercy--errands of sin--did you ever think where all the thousands of people you daily meet are bound? ~ Elizabeth Gaskell,

92:When the light of God's truth begins to find its way through the mists of illusion and self-deception with which we have unconsciously surrounded ourselves, and when the image of God within us begins to return to itself, the false self which we inherited from Adam begins to experience the strange panic that Adam felt when, after his sin, he hid in the trees of the garden because he heard the voice of the Lord God in the afternoon.

If we are to recover our own identity, and return to God by the way Adam came in his fall, we must learn to stop saying: "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked. And I hid." [Genesis 2:10] We must cast away the "aprons of leaves" and the "garments of skins" which the Fathers of the Church variously interpret as passions, and attachments to earthly things, and fixation in our own rigid determination to be someone other than our true selves. ~ Thomas Merton,

93:No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:
I do what many dream of, all their lives,
--Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive--you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,--
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter)--so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,
Enter and take their place there sure enough,
Though they come back and cannot tell the world. ~ Robert Browning,

94:[O]ne of the fatal errors of conceptual theology has been the separation of the acts of religious existence from the statements about it. Ideas of faith must not be studied in total separation from the moments of faith. If a plant is uprooted from its soil, removed from its native winds, sun-rays and terrestrial environment, and kept in a hothouse— will observations made of such a plant disclose its primordial nature? The growing inwardness of man that reaches and curves toward the light of God can hardly be transplanted into the shallowness of mere reflection. Torn out of its medium in human life, it wilts like a rose pressed between the pages of a book. Religion is, indeed, little more than a desiccated remnant of a once living reality when reduced to terms and definitions, to codes and catechisms. It can only be studied in its natural habitat of faith and piety, in a soul where the divine is within reach of all thoughts. ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel,

95:The mercy of God is infinite too, and the man who has felt the grinding pain of inward guilt knows that this is more than academic. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." Abounding sin is the terror of the world, but abounding grace is the hope of mankind. however sin may abound it still has its limits, for it is the product of finite minds and hearts; but God's much more" introduces us to infinitude. Against our deep creature-sickness stands God's infinite ability to cure. The Christian witness through the centuries has been that "God so loved the world . . ."; it remains for us to see that love in the light of God's infinitude. His love is measureless. It is more: it is boundless. It has no bounds because it is not a thing but a facet of the essential nature of God. His love is something He is, and because He is infinite that love can enfold the whole created world in itself and have room for ten thousand times ten thousand worlds beside. ~ A W Tozer,

96:is woven of the fine threads of the self-life, the hyphenated sins of the human spirit. They are not something we do, they are something we are, and therein lies both their subtlety and their power. To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them. They dwell too deep within us and are too much a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of these sins, egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion, are strangely tolerated in Christian leaders even in circles of impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as actually, for many people, to become identified with the gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in some sections of the Church visible. Promoting self under the guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite little notice. ~ A W Tozer,

97:Our death is our wedding with eternity
What is the secret? "God is One."
The sunlight splits when entering the windows of the house.
This multiplicity exists in the cluster of grapes;
It is not in the juice made from the grapes.
For he who is living in the Light of God,
The death of the carnal soul is a blessing.
Regarding him, say neither bad nor good,
For he is gone beyond the good and the bad.
Fix your eyes on God and do not talk about what is invisible,
So that he may place another look in your eyes.
It is in the vision of the physical eyes
That no invisible or secret thing exists.
But when the eye is turned toward the Light of God
What thing could remain hidden under such a Light?
Although all lights emanate from the Divine Light
Don't call all these lights "the Light of God";
It is the eternal light which is the Light of God,
The ephemeral light is an attribute of the body and the flesh.
...Oh God who gives the grace of vision!
The bird of vision is flying towards You with the wings of desire. ~ Rumi,

98:/Farsi & Turkish Now comes the final merging, Now comes everlasting beauty. Now comes abundant grace, Now comes boundless purity. The infinite treasure is shining, The mighty ocean is roaring, The morning of grace has come -- Morning? -- No! This is the eternal Light of God! Who occupies this beautiful form? Who is the ruler and the prince? Who is the wise man? -- Nothing but a veil. The wine of love removes these veils. Drink with your head and your eyes -- Both your eyes, and both your heads! Your head of clay is from the earth, Your pure awareness is from heaven. O how vast is that treasure which lies beneath the clay! Every head you see depends on it! Behind every atom of this world hides an infinite universe. O Saaqi, free us from the facade of this world. Bring wine -- barrels full! Our eyes see too straight -- straight past the truth! The Light of Truth shines from Tabriz. It is beyond the beyond yet it is here, shining through every particle of this world. [2511.jpg] -- from Rumi: In the Arms of the Beloved, by Jonathan Star

~ Jalaluddin Rumi, Now comes the final merging
,

99:Faith, hope and charity go together. Hope is practised through the virtue of patience, which continues to do good even in the face of apparent failure, and through the virtue of humility, which accepts God's mystery and trusts him even at times of darkness. Faith tells us that God has given his Son for our sakes and gives us the victorious certainty that it is really true: God is love! It thus transforms our impatience and our doubts into the sure hope that God holds the world in his hands and that, as the dramatic imagery of the end of the Book of Revelation points out, in spite of all darkness he ultimately triumphs in glory. Faith, which sees the love of God revealed in the pierced heart of Jesus on the Cross, gives rise to love. Love is the light—and in the end, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working. Love is possible, and we are able to practise it because we are created in the image of God. To experience love and in this way to cause the light of God to enter into the world—this is the invitation I would like to extend with the present Encyclical. ~ Benedict XVI,

100:yet he felt the contrast between the well-filled, well-lighted shops and the dim gloomy cellar, and it made him moody that such contrasts should exist. They are the mysterious problem of life to more than him. He wondered if any in all the hurrying crowd had come from such a house of mourning. He thought they all looked joyous, and he was angry with them. But he could not, you cannot, read the lot of those who daily pass you by in the street. How do you know the wild romances of their lives; the trials, the temptations they are even now enduring, resisting, sinking under? You may be elbowed one instant by the girl desperate in her abandonment, laughing in mad merriment with her outward gesture, while her soul is longing for the rest of the dead, and bringing itself to think of the cold flowing river as the only mercy of God remaining to her here. You may pass the criminal, meditating crimes at which you will to-morrow shudder with horror as you read them. You may push against one, humble and unnoticed, the last upon earth, who in heaven will for ever be in the immediate light of God’s countenance. Errands of mercy — errands of sin ~ Elizabeth Gaskell,

101:Sow the seeds of hard work and you will reap the fruits of success. Find something to do, do it with all your concentration. You will excel.

Show the world you are not here to just pass through. Leave great footprints wherever you pass and be remembered for the change you initiated.

Flow wherever you go. You can’t be limited. Dare to rise above all limitations and become better than you were. Strive to arrive at the top.

Glow wherever you go and let the light of God reflect in the world around you. You carry the light of God and wherever you pass, darkness must flee.

Grow your talents and skills through a consistent practice and progressive learning. Learn to relearn and unlearn. Raise the bar for yourself always.

Blow out all negative attitudes and live true to your dreams. Talks less and act more. Be confident and see yourself wining even before the victory comes.

Know God and let Him be known. You were saved by grace for greater works apportioned for you even before you were born. Share the good news.

I am proud of you because greater things that eyes have not seen yet, the Lord will do through you. ~ Israelmore Ayivor,

102:For so reverent is God to that Spirit which is Himself in man, that He will not even pour into the human soul a flood of strength and life unless that soul is willing to receive it. There must be an opening from below as well as an outpouring from above, the receptiveness of the lower nature as well as the willingness of the higher to give. That is the link between the Christ and the man; that is what the churches have called the outpouring of "divine grace"; that is what is meant by the "faith" necessary to make the grace effective. As Giordano Bruno once put it — the human soul has windows, and can shut those windows close. The sun outside is shining, the light is unchanging; let the windows be opened and the sunlight must stream in. The light of God is beating against the windows of every human soul, and when the windows are thrown open, the soul becomes illuminated. There is no change in God, but there is a change in man; and man's will may not be forced, else were the divine Life in him blocked in its due evolution. Thus in every Christ that rises, all humanity is lifted a step higher, and by His wisdom the ignorance of the whole world is lessened. ~ Annie Besant in Esoteric Christianity (The Lesser Mysteries), Theosophical publishing, (1914),

103:From The Cantata For N. F. S. Grundtvig
His day was the greatest the Northland has seen,
It one was with the midnight-sun's wonders serene:
The light wherein he sat was the light of God's true peace,
And that has never morning, nor night when it must cease.
In light of God's peace shone the
history
he gave,
The spirit's course on earth that shall conquer the grave.
Might of God's pure peace thus our
fathers'
mighty way
Before us for example and warning open lay.
In light of God's peace he beheld with watchful eye
The people at their work and the spirit's strivings high.
In light of God's pure peace he would have all learning glow,
And where his word is honored the 'Folk-High-Schools' must grow.
In light of God's peace stood 'mid sorrow and care
For Denmark's folk his comfort, a castle strong and fair;
In light of God's pure peace there shall once again be won
And thousand-fold increased, what seems lost now and undone.
In light of God's peace stands his patriarch-worth,
The sum and the amen of a manful life on earth.
In light of God's pure peace how his face shone, lifted up,
When white-haired at the altar he held th' atoning cup.
In light of God's peace came his word o'er the wave,
In light of God's pure peace sound the sweet psalms he gave.
In light of God's pure peace, as its sunbeam curtains fall
To hide him from us, stands now his memory for all.
~ Bjornstjerne Bjornson,

104:Truth is not a thing
Or a concept.
It is as multidimensional
In its meaning
As it is in its reflection.
It is both invisible
And visible.
It carries tons of weight,
But can be carried.
It is understood first through the spirit
Before science,
And felt in the heart,
Before the mind.
Truth is not always heard by reason,
Because reason sometimes
Ignores Truth.

Always listen to your conscience.
Your conscience is your heart
And reason is your mind.
Your mind is simply there to reason
With your heart.
But remember,
Truth is in your heart,
And only through your heart
Can you connect to the light of God.
He who is not motivated by his heart
Will not see Truth,
And he who thinks only with his mind
Will be blind to Truth.
He who does not think
With his conscience,
Does not stand by God,
For the language of light
Can only be decoded by the heart.
He who reads and recites words of God
Also does not stand by God –
If he merely understands
Words with his mind
But not his heart.

Truth is black and white,
And the entire spectrum
Of colors in-between.
It can have many parts,
But has a solid foundation.
Truth lacks perfection,
For it is the reflection of all,
Yet its reflection as a whole,
Is more beautiful
Than the accumulated flaws
Of the small.
Truth is the only brand
Worth breathing
And believing.
So stand for truth
In everything you do,
And only then
Does your life have
Meaning. ~ Suzy Kassem,

105:Truth is not a thing
Or a concept.
It is as multidimensional
In its meaning
As it is in its reflection.
It is both invisible
And visible.
It carries tons of weight,
But can be carried.
It is understood first through the spirit
Before science,
And felt in the heart,
Before the mind.
Truth is not always heard by reason,
Because reason sometimes
Ignores Truth.

Always listen to your conscience.
Your conscience is your heart
And reason is your mind.
Your mind is simply there to reason
With your heart.
But remember,
Truth is in your heart,
And only through your heart
Can you connect to the light of God.
He who is not motivated by his heart
Will not see Truth,
And he who thinks only with his mind
Will be blind to Truth.
He who does not think
With his conscience,
Does not stand by God,
For the language of light
Can only be decoded by the heart.
He who reads and recites words of God
Also does not stand by God –
If he merely understands
Words with his mind
But not his heart.

Truth is black and white,
And the entire spectrum
Of colors in-between.
It can have many parts,
But has a solid foundation.
Truth lacks perfection,
For it is the reflection of all,
Yet its reflection as a whole,
Is more beautiful
Than the accumulated flaws
Of the small.
Truth is the only brand
Worth breathing
And believing.
So stand for truth
In everything you do,
And only then
Does your life have
Meaning.

WHAT IS TRUTH? by Suzy Kassem ~ Suzy Kassem,

106:WHAT IS TRUTH?

Truth is not a thing
Or a concept.
It is as multidimensional
In its meaning
As it is in its reflection.
It is both invisible
And visible.
It carries tons of weight,
But can be carried.
It is understood first through the spirit
Before science,
And felt in the heart,
Before the mind.
Truth is not always heard by reason,
Because reason sometimes
Ignores Truth.

Always listen to your conscience.
Your conscience is your heart
And reason is your mind.
Your mind is simply there to reason
With your heart.
But remember,
Truth is in your heart,
And only through your heart
Can you connect to the light of God.
He who is not motivated by his heart
Will not see Truth,
And he who thinks only with his mind
Will be blind to Truth.
He who does not think
With his conscience,
Does not stand by God,
For the language of light
Can only be decoded by the heart.
He who reads and recites words of God
Also does not stand by God –
If he merely understands
Words with his mind
But not his heart.

Truth is black and white,
And the entire spectrum
Of colors in-between.
It can have many parts,
But has a solid foundation.
Truth lacks perfection,
For it is the reflection of all,
Yet its reflection as a whole,
Is more beautiful
Than the accumulated flaws
Of the small.
Truth is the only brand
Worth breathing
And believing.
So stand for truth
In everything you do,
And only then
Does your life have
Meaning.

Poetry by Suzy Kassem ~ Suzy Kassem,

107:105 Our death is an eternal wedding-feast; what is the secret of this? He is God, One. The sun became dispersed through the windows; the windows became shut, and the numbers departed. Those numbers which existed in the grapes are naughted in the juice which flows from the grapes. Whosoever is living by the light of God, the death of this spirit is replenishment to him. Speak not evil, speak not good regarding those who have passed away from good and evil. Fix your eye on God, and speak not of what you have not seen, that He may implant another eye in your eye. That eye is the eye of the eye, nothing unseen or secret escapes from it. When its gaze is by the Light of God, to such a light what can be hidden? Though all lights are the Light of God, call not all of those the eternal Light. Eternal light is that which is the Light of God, transient light is the attribute of flesh and body. The light in this mortal eye is a fire, save for that eye which God anoints with surmeh {collyrium}. His fire became light for the sake of Abraham; the eye of reason became in quality like the eye of an ass. O God, the bird of the eye which has seen Your bounty flies in Your air. The Pole, he who is the sky of the skies, is on the lookout in search of You; Either grant him vision to see You, or do not dismiss him on account of this fault. Make tearful the eye of your soul every moment, guard it against the snare of human stature and cheek. Eye asleep and yourself wakeful—such a sleep is perfection and rectitude; But the eye asleep that finds no interpretation (of dreams)—expel it from sleep, despite envy. Else it will labour and be boiling in the fire of love of the One, even to the grave. ~ Rumi,

108:The Valley Of Fear
In the journey of life, as we travel along
To the mystical goal that is hidden from sight,
You may stumble at times into Roadways of Wrong,
Not seeing the sign-board that points to the right.
Through caverns of sorrow your feet may be led,
Where the noon of the day will like midnight appear.
But no matter whither you wander or tread,
Keep out of the Valley of Fear.
The Roadways of Wrong will wind out into light
If you sit in the silence and ask for a Guide;
In the caverns of sorrow your soul gains its sight
Of beautiful vistas, ascending and wide.
In by-paths of worry and trouble and strife
Full many a bloom grows bedewed by a tear,
But wretched and arid and void of all life
Is the desolate Valley of Fear.
The Valley of Fear is a maddening maze
Of paths that wind on without exit or end,
From nowhere to nowhere lead all of its ways,
And shadows with shadows in more shadows blend.
Each guide-post is lettered, 'This way to Despair,'
And the River of Death in the darkness flows near,
But there is a beautiful Roadway of Prayer
This side of the Valley of Fear.
This beautiful Roadway is narrow and steep,
And it runs up the side of the Mountain of Faith.
You may not perceive it at first if you weep,
But it rises high over the River of Death.
Though the Roadway is narrow and dark at the base,
It widens ascending, and ever grows clear,
Till it shines at the top with the Light of God's face,
Far, far from the Valley of Fear.
721
When close to that Valley your footsteps shall fare,
Turn, turn to the Roadway of PrayerThe beautiful Roadway of Prayer.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox,

109:The Christian soul knows it needs Divine Help and therefore turns to Him Who loved us even while we were yet sinners. Examination of conscience, instead of inducing morbidity, thereby becomes an occasion of joy. There are two ways of knowing how good and loving God is. One is by never losing Him, through the preservation of innocence, and the other is by finding Him after one has lost Him. Repentance is not self-regarding, but God-regarding. It is not self-loathing, but God-loving. Christianity bids us accept ourselves as we really are, with all our faults and our failings and our sins. In all other religions, one has to be good to come to God—in Christianity one does not. Christianity might be described as a “come as you are” party. It bids us stop worrying about ourselves, stop concentrating on our faults and our failings, and thrust them upon the Saviour with a firm resolve of amendment. The examination of conscience never induces despair, always hope…Because examination of conscience is done in the light of God’s love, it begins with a prayer to the Holy Spirit to illumine our minds. A soul then acts toward the Spirit of God as toward a watchmaker who will fix our watch. We put a watch in his hands because we know he will not force it, and we put our souls in God’s hands because we know that if he inspects them regularly they will work as they should…it is true that, the closer we get to God, the more we see our defects. A painting reveals few defects under candlelight, but the sunlight may reveal it as daub. The very good never believe themselves very good, because they are judging themselves by the Ideal. In perfect innocence each soul, like the Apostles at the Last Supper, cries out, “Is it I, Lord” (Matt. 26:22). ~ Fulton J Sheen,

110:There is another and stronger reason why the soul travels securely when in darkness. This reason is derived from the consideration of the light itself, or dark wisdom. The dark night of contemplation so absorbs the soul, and brings it so near unto God, that He defends it, and delivers it from all that is not God. For the soul is now, as it were, under medical treatment for the recovery of its health, which is God Himself: God compels it to observe a particular diet, and to abstain from all hurtful things, the very desire for them being subdued. The soul is treated like a sick man respected by his household, who is so carefully tended that the air shall not touch him, nor the light shine upon him, whom the noise of footsteps and the tumult of servants shall not disturb, and to whom the most delicate food is given most cautiously by measure, and that nutritious rather than savory. 12. All these advantages—they all minister to the safekeeping of the soul—are the effects of this dim contemplation, for it brings the soul nearer to God. The truth is, that the nearer the soul comes to Him it perceives that darkness is greater and deeper because of its own weakness; thus the nearer the sun the greater the darkness and distress wrought by its great brightness, because our eyes are weak, imperfect, and defective. Hence it is that the spiritual light of God is so immeasurable, so far above the understanding, that when it comes near to it, it dims and blinds it. 13. This is the reason why David says that God made darkness His hiding-place and covert, His tabernacle around Him, dark water in the clouds of the air.10 The dark water in the clouds of the air is the dim contemplation and divine wisdom in souls, as I am going to explain, of which they have experience as a thing near to the pavilion where He dwells, when God brings them ~ Juan de la Cruz,

111:Selfhood can demolish the magic of this world; But our belief in The One is not comprehended by all. Have a seer's eye, and light will dawn on thee; As a river and its waves cannot remain apart. The light of God and knowledge are not in rivalry, But so the pulpit believes, afraid of Hallaj's rope. Contentment is the shield for the pure and the noble A shield in slavery, and a shield in power. In the East the soul looks in vain for light; In the West the light is a faded cloud of dust. The fakirs who could shatter the power and pelf of kings No longer tread this earth, in climes far or near. The spirit of this age is brimful with negations, And drained to the last drop is the power of faith. Muted is Europe's lament on its crumbling pageant, Muted by the delirious beats, the clangour of its music. A sleepy ripple awaits, to swell into a wave A wave that will swallow up monsters of the sea. What is slavery but a loss of the sense of beauty? What the free call beautiful, is beautiful indeed. The present belongs to him who explores, in their depths, The fathomless seas of time, to find the future's pearl. The alchemist of the West has turned stone into glass But my alchemy has transmuted glass into flint Pharaohs of today have stalked me in vain; But I fear not; I am blessed with Moses' wand. The flame that can set afire a dark, sunless wood, Will not be throttled by a straw afloat in the wind. Love is self-awareness; love is self-knowledge; Love cares not for the palaces and the power of kings. I will not wonder if I reach even the moon and the stars, For I have hitched my wagon to the star of all stars. First among the wise, last of the Prophets, Who gave a speck of dust the brightness of the Mount. He is the first and last in the eyes of love; He is the Word of God. He is the Word of God.

~ Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Selfhood can demolish the magic of this world (from Baal-i-Jibreel)
,

112:Action Step: Nourished by “Light” You can prove to yourself how nourishing a new word can be once it begins to be your personal theme. Let’s use the word light. Since it’s the opposite of heavy, this word is one of the best for our purposes. The more you bring light into your life, the easier it will be to lose weight. Why? Because light covers so many positive experiences. Look at the following usages: Lighthearted Light-handed Enlightened Feeling light and bright The light of inspiration Lightness of being The light of the soul The light of God If you had these things in your life, it would be much easier for your body to be light. Your mind would be sending messages that are the opposite of heavy, dull, inert, tired, bored, dark, unenlightened. Start to rid yourself of those messages and let your body conform to lightness and all of its positive connotations. With this background, you can proceed to use light in various ways, beginning with the physical sensation of being light. Exercise: Filling with Light Sit in a quiet room by yourself. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths until you feel centered and ready. (It’s best to sit upright if you can rather than lounging back in your chair.) Breathing normally, visualize light filling your chest each time you inhale. The light is soft, warm, and white. Watch it suffuse your chest. Now exhale normally, but leave the light inside. On your next breath, take in more light. See the light filling your chest now begin to suffuse the rest of your body, moving down into your abdomen. Don’t force the visualization, and don’t worry if you have trouble seeing the light—even a faint sense of white light is good enough. With each breath, let the light suffuse your arms, then your hands all the way to the fingertips. Let it suffuse your legs down to your toes. Finally, send the light into your head and out the top in a beam that reaches high. Sit with the light for a few moments, then lift your arms, letting them float upward as if the light is causing them to rise. You are like a balloon filled completely with light. Enjoy the sensation, then open your eyes. This is a good exercise to counteract feelings of dullness, heaviness, fatigue, and sadness. The sensation of being physically light, paired with the visualization of inner light, creates a big change in how you relate to your body. ~ Deepak Chopra,

113:/Farsi & Turkish With every breath the sound of love surrounds us, and we are bound for the depths of space, without distraction. We've been in orbit before and know the angels there. Let's go there again, Master, for that is our land. Yet we are beyond all of that and more than angels. Out beyond duality, we have a home, and it is Majesty. That pure substance is different from this dusty world. What kind of place is this? We once came down; soon we'll return. A new happiness befriends us as we work at offering our lives. Muhammad, the jewel of the world, is our caravan's chosen guide. The sweetness we breathe on the wind is from the scent of his hair, and the radiance of our thought is from the light of his day. His face once caused the moon to split in two. She couldn't endure the sight of him. Yet how lucky she was, she who humbly received him. Look into your heart and see the splitting moon within each breath. Having seen that vision, how can you still dream? When the wave of "Am I not?" struck, it wrecked the body's ship; when the ship wrecks again, it will be the time of union. The Human Being, like a bird of the sea, emerged from the ocean of the soul. Earth is not the final place of rest for a bird born from the sea. No, we are pearls of that ocean; all of us live in it; and if it weren't so, why would wave upon wave arrive? This is the time of union, the time of eternal beauty. It is the time of luck and kindness; it is the ocean of purity. The wave of bestowal has come. The roar of the sea is here. The morning of happiness has dawned. No, it is the light of God. Whose face is pictured here? Who is this shah or prince? Who is this ancient intelligence? They are all masks . . . and the only remedy is this boiling ecstasy of the soul. A fountain of refreshment is in the head and the eyes -- not this bodily head but another pure spiritual one. Many a pure head has been spilled in the dust. Know the one from the other! Our original head is hidden, while this other is visible. Beyond this world is a world that has no boundaries. Put your water skin away, brother, and draw some wine from our cask! The clay jug of perception has such a narrow spout. The sun appeared from the direction of Tabriz, and I said, "This light is at once joined with all things, and yet apart from everything." [2295.jpg] -- from Love is a Stranger: Selected Lyric Poetry by Jelaluddin Rumi and Kabir, Translated by Kabir Helmiski

~ Jalaluddin Rumi, A World with No Boundaries (Ghazal 363)
,

114:So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (NIV) What does Scripture mean when it tells us to fix our eyes on what we can’t even see? How do we begin to do that? Even though as Christians we affirm the reality of the spiritual realm, sometimes we succumb to naturalistic assumptions that what we see is real and what we don’t see isn’t. Many people conclude that God can’t be real, because we can’t see Him. And Heaven can’t be real, because we can’t see it. But we must recognize our blindness. The blind must take by faith that there are stars in the sky. If they depend on their ability to see, they will conclude there are no stars. Sitting here in what C. S. Lewis called the Shadowlands, we must remind ourselves what Scripture tells us about Heaven. We will one day be delivered from the blindness that obscures the light of God’s world. For many people—including many believers—Heaven is a mysterious word describing a place that we can’t understand and therefore don’t look forward to. But Scripture tells us differently. What we otherwise could not have known about Heaven, God says He has revealed to us through His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10). God tells us about our eternal home in His Word, not so we can shrug our shoulders and remain ignorant, but because He wants us to anticipate what awaits us and those we love, and because it has the power to transform the way we live today. Life on earth matters not because it’s the only life we have, but precisely because it isn’t—it’s the beginning of a life that will continue without end. It’s the precursor of life on the New Earth. Eternal life doesn’t begin when we die; it has already begun. With eternity in view, nearly any honest activity—whether building a shed, driving a bus, pruning trees, changing diapers or caring for a patient—can be an investment in God’s kingdom. God is eternal. His Place is eternal. His Word is eternal. His people are eternal. Center your life around God, His Place, His Word, and His people, and reach out to those eternal souls who desperately long for His person and His place. Then no matter what you do for a living, your days here will make a profound difference for eternity—and you will be fulfilling the biblical admonition to fix your eyes on what is unseen. This book includes 60 daily devotionals on a variety of topics related to living each day purposefully with an eternal perspective. (My thanks to Stephanie Anderson for compiling things I’ve written and quotations I’ve collected.) I hope they will encourage you to live with eternity in mind as you follow Jesus with all your heart. —Randy Alcorn ~ Randy Alcorn,

115:At the heart of God is the desire to give and to forgive. Because of this, he set into motion the entire redemptive process that culminated in the cross and was confirmed in the resurrection. The usual notion of what Jesus did on the cross was something like this: people were so bad and so mean and God was so angry with them that he could not forgive them unless somebody big enough took the rap for the whole lot of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. Golgotha came as a result of God’s great desire to forgive, not his reluctance. Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it. This is why Jesus refused the customary painkiller when it was offered him. He wanted to be completely alert for this greatest work of redemption. In a deep and mysterious way he was preparing to take on the collective sin of the human race. Since Jesus lives in the eternal now, this work was not just for those around him, but he took in all the violence, all the fear, all the sin of all the past, all the present, and all the future. This was his highest and most holy work, the work that makes confession and the forgiveness of sins possible…Some seem to think that when Jesus shouted “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” it was a moment of weakness (Mark 15:34). Not at all. This was his moment of greatest triumph. Jesus, who had walked in constant communion with the Father, now became so totally identified with humankind that he was the actual embodiment of sin. As Paul writes, “he made him to be sin who knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus succeeded in taking into himself all of the dark powers of this present evil age and defeated every one of them by the light of his presence. He accomplished such a total identification with the sin of the race that he experienced the abandonment of God. Only in that way could he redeem sin. It was indeed his moment of greatest triumph. Having accomplished this greatest of all his works, Jesus then took refreshment. “It is finished,” he announced. That is, this great work of redemption was completed. He could feel the last dregs of the misery of humankind flow through him and into the care of the Father. The last twinges of evil, hostility, anger, and fear drained out of him, and he was able to turn again into the light of God’s presence. “It is finished.” The task is complete. Soon after, he was free to give up his spirit to the father. …Without the cross the Discipline of confession would be only psychologically therapeutic. But it is so much more. It involves and objective change in our relationship with God and a subjective change in us. It is a means of healing and transforming the inner spirit. ~ Richard J Foster,

116:23 And it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two nights, the limbs of Alma received their strength, and he stood up and began to speak unto them, bidding them to be of good comfort: 24 For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit. 25 And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; 26 And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. 27 I say unto you, unless this be the case, they must be cast off; and this I know, because I was like to be cast off. 28 Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God. 29 My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more. 30 I rejected my Redeemer, and denied that which had been spoken of by our fathers; but now that they may foresee that he will come, and that he remembereth every creature of his creating, he will make himself manifest unto all. 31 Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before him. Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all-searching eye. 32 And now it came to pass that Alma began from this time forward to teach the people, and those who were with Alma at the time the angel appeared unto them, traveling round about through all the land, publishing to all the people the things which they had heard and seen, and preaching the word of God in much tribulation, being greatly persecuted by those who were unbelievers, being smitten by many of them. 33 But notwithstanding all this, they did impart much consolation to the church, confirming their faith, and exhorting them with long-suffering and much travail to keep the commandments of God. 34 And four of them were the sons of Mosiah; and their names were Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni; these were the names of the sons of Mosiah. 35 And they traveled throughout all the land of Zarahemla, and among all the people who were under the reign of king Mosiah, zealously striving to repair all the injuries which they had done to the church, confessing all their sins, and publishing all the things which they had seen, and explaining the prophecies and the scriptures to all who desired to hear them. 36 And thus they were instruments in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, to the knowledge of their Redeemer. 37 And how blessed are they! For they did publish peace; they did publish good tidings of good; and they did declare unto the people that the Lord reigneth. Mosiah Chapter 28 The sons of Mosiah go to preach to the Lamanites—Using the two seer stones, Mosiah translates the Jaredite plates. ~ Joseph Smith Jr,

117:The Ideal
Spirit of Dreams! When many a toilsome height
Shut paradise from exiled Adam’s sight,
Two wedded powers were given thenceforth to stray
On either hand, companions of his way;
This Hope was named in heaven, whence he came,
And that of Melancholy bore the name;
Thy parents these—who clothed thee with a ray
Snatched from Perfection as she passed away,
And to their gentle child bequeathed the grace
Wherewith they once adorned unfallen nature’s face.
Queen-mother of Elysiums, and all fair
Hesperian gardens, hear thy suppliant’s prayer!
Lend me the hues with which the mortal eyes
Thou dost bring back the tints of paradise—
Hues drawn from all the splendours that there be
In this new world, from earth and sky and sea;
From nameless flowers, that wild in forests run,
Up to the glories of the setting sun—
From those white flickers that round fountains leap,
From the phosphoric lightenings of the deep,
From wave-wet sands that glisten on the shore,
From blazing diamonds and rich-beaming ore;
From these by thee with native art combined,
And interblended with the light of mind;
These hues now lend thy suppliant, for he
The brilliant steps would trace of thy whole ministry.
O for a golden lyre while first I sing
How thou dost lovelier make the loveliest thing!
Woman is beautiful!—no more—unless
Thou touch her beauty with thy soft caress;
Then sweeter sweets her form at once invest
Than breathe in gales of Araby the blest!
A thousand charms from thy fair soul are given,
And she outshines the very moon of heaven.
Lovely this prospect! Yet thy presence here
Doubles each glory of the golden year!
Breathes but thy influence o er a pasture plain,
And lo! ’tis flushed with Eden-glows again.
187
This light, how glorious! A sun-woven robe
Wrapping in living warmth the fruitful globe:
But if thy touch lend vision to our eyes,
We see celestial radiance flood the skies;
The common light burns with diviner flame,
“It is the light of God!” Our awestruck souls exclaim.
O he whose wild heart leaps to thy wild call,
Hath yet some joy whatever may befall!
Hath yet some wealth where destitution reigns—
Nay, even some high inviolable gains
Where rapine sits enthroned, and slavery clanks her chains!
Still his possessions compass whatsoe er
Of good and beauteous nature treasures there!
Still the lone hill, wild vale, and pathless grove
Are his by the great solemn right of love;
For him what gold is in the morning’s hues!
What unbought jewels are the lucent dews!
What regal mansions are the brookside bowers!
What gay assemblies the balm-breathing flowers!
Then every bird that pipes a matin lay
Doth unto him unconscious tribute pay;
Yea, every grace of stream and wood and sky
Is vassal to his sovereign ear and eye.
And when the busy coils of Mammon’s brood
Fail like the voices of an ebbing flood,
And from the scenes that glared with her display
Pride-drunken fashion rolls fatigued away;
When from mild evening’s shadowy robe the breeze
Shakes cool delight and odorous messages;
And when no longer the sun’s beams fire-crest
The dusky hills, but round him in the west
Are gathered, even like a summoned host,
In gorgeous tents on the horizon’s coast,
Ere to the regions of a separate day
He rolls at length in purple pomp away;
Whilst yet—some moments yet—withdrawing gleams
Travel the air, and die along the streams;
A sumptuous festival that hour shall prove
To bathe his chosen soul with harmony and love!
188
When up the unclouded heaven in starry sheen
Night walks like a gem-sprangled Ethiop queen,
And from her solemn curtains wide unfurled
Falls dense repose upon the drowsy world,
No sordid appetite, no passion mean,
Chains down thy votary to this mere terrene;
But following thee he freely soars afar
From moon to planet, and from star to star!
Yea, onward still he venturous may trace
Thy distant course through dimmest depths of space,
Till waxing bolder from the boundless flight,
He claim his kinship with the infinite.
And now, though mournful he thy servant’s theme,
A tale of hapless love, or faded dream
Of worth, of men, whose spirits once so bright
Like halcyons gemmed the rivers of delight,
But fled misfortune’s wintry floods before,
Never to show their shining plumage more;
Still thou, thy hope-tired follower ever near,
Sublim’st each sigh and hallowest every tear,
Till even despair thy handmaid grows to be,
Sending a lurid light by its intensity
Through awful spirit depths thy foes can never see.
Doth danger threaten, and doth terror scream?
O’er their wild fronts a reconciling gleam
Thy wings reflect! The storm that rends the sky
And ploughs the ocean can, if thou art nigh,
Give to the heart stern strength and lift the soul on high!
Thou throw’st fierce loveliness o’er ruin’s face,
And over death’s calm brow a mild entrancing grace.
Nay, be thy glance but turned where devils dwell,
And a sad glory lightens out of hell!
Spirit of dreams! Oh, let me grateful say
How thou hast brightened my lone earthly way!
When most beset by troubles stern and new,
When foes must triumphed, friends were most untrue,
My soul’s distractions thou hast all subdued
Through visions high of Love, and Liberty and Good.
Or stood I like a wizard, wild and lone,
On some great mountain’s cloud-frequented cone,
189
Meet altar of a universal fane,
Where no fiend-rites had left their murder-strain,
Thou gav’st me faith’s prophetic power, to seize
High consolation out of mysteries—
Those mystic terrors that low-muttering roll
Through life’s dim tract, the storm-clouds of the soul.
O spirit! Thus attend me to the last!
Brighten the future as thou did st the past!
May never aught thy splendid dreams dispel,
Till the hard Real earn the heart’s applause as well.
~ Charles Harpur,

118:The May Queen
YOU must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year,—
Of all the glad new-year, mother, the maddest, merriest day;
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
There 's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
There 's Margaret and Mary, there 's Kate and Caroline;
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land, they say:
So I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers and buds, and garlands gay;
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
As I came up the valley, whom think ye should I see
But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,—
But I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white;
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
They say he 's dying all for love,—but that can never be;
They say his heart is breaking, mother,—what is that to me?
There 's many a bolder lad 'll woo me any summer day;
And I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,
And you 'll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;
For the shepherd lads on every side 'll come from far away;
And I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray;
And I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
683
The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day;
And I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
All the valley, mother, 'll be fresh and green and still,
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,
And the rivulet in the flowery dale 'll merrily glance and play,
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow 'll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year;
To-morrow 'll be of all the year the maddest, merriest day,
For I 'm to be Queen o' the May, mother, I 'm to be Queen o' the May.
NEW YEAR'S EVE
If you 're waking, call me early, call me early, mother dear,
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad new-year.
It is the last new-year that I shall ever see,—
Then you may lay me low i' the mold, and think no more of me.
To-night I saw the sun set,—he set and left behind
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;
And the new-year 's coming up, mother; but I shall never see
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.
Last May we made a crown of flowers; we had a merry day,—
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;
And we danced about the May-pole and in the hazel copse,
Till Charles's Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.
There 's not a flower on all the hills,—the frost is on the pane;
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again.
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high,—
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.
The building-rook 'll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow 'll come back again with summer o'er the wave,
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the moldering grave.
684
Upon the chancel casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early, early morning the summer sun 'll shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,—
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.
When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light
You 'll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.
You 'll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And you 'll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.
I shall not forget you, mother; I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.
I have been wild and wayward, but you 'll forgive me now;
You 'll kiss me, my own mother, upon my cheek and brow;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild;
You should not fret for me, mother—you have another child.
If I can, I 'll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;
Though you 'll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
Though I cannot speak a word, I shall harken what you say,
And be often, often with you when you think I 'm far away.
Good night! good night! when I have said good night forevermore,
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door,
Don't let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green,—
She 'll be a better child to you than ever I have been.
She 'll find my garden tools upon the granary floor.
Let her take 'em—they are hers; I shall never garden more;
But tell her, when I 'm gone, to train the rosebush that I set
About the parlor window and the box of mignonette.
Good night, sweet-mother! Call me before the day is born.
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad new-year,—
So, if you 're waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.
CONCLUSION
I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am;
685
And in the fields all around I hear the bleating of the lamb.
How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!
To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violet 's here.
O, sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies;
And sweeter is the young lamb's voice to me that cannot rise;
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow;
And sweeter far is death than life, to me that long to go.
It seemed so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessèd sun,
And now it seems as hard to stay; and yet, His will be done!
But still I think it can't be long before I find release;
And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace.
O, blessings on his kindly voice, and on his silver hair,
And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there!
O, blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head!
A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.
He taught me all the mercy, for he showed me all the sin;
Now, though my lamp was lighted late, there 's One will let me in.
Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be;
For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.
I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat,—
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet;
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.
All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call,—
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.
For, lying broad awake, I thought of you and Effie dear;
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;
With all my strength I prayed for both,—and so I felt resigned,
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.
I thought that it was fancy, and I listened in my bed;
And then did something speak to me,—I know not what was said;
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,
686
And up the valley came again the music on the wind.
But you were sleeping; and I said, "It 's not for them,—it 's mine;"
And if it comes three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.
And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars;
Then seemed to go right up to heaven and die among the stars.
So now I think my time is near; I trust it is. I know
The blessèd music went that way my soul will have to go.
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day;
But Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away.
And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret;
There 's many a worthier than I, would make him happy yet.
If I had lived—I cannot tell—I might have been his wife;
But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.
O, look! the sun begins to rise! the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine,—
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.
O, sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done
The voice that now is speaking may be beyond the sun,—
Forever and forever with those just souls and true,—
And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?
Forever and forever, all in a blessèd home,—
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come,—
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast,—
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson,

119:But do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,
Treat his own subject after his own way,
Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
And shut the money into this small hand
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
Oh, I'll content him,but to-morrow, Love!
I often am much wearier than you think,
This evening more than usual, and it seems
As ifforgive nowshould you let me sit
Here by the window with your hand in mine
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
Both of one mind, as married people use,
Quietly, quietly the evening through,
I might get up to-morrow to my work
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!
Your soft hand is a woman of itself,
And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.
Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve
For each of the five pictures we require:
It saves a model. So! keep looking so
My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet
My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,
Which everybody looks on and calls his,
And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
While she looksno one's: very dear, no less.
You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,
There's what we painters call our harmony!
A common greyness silvers everything,
All in a twilight, you and I alike
You, at the point of your first pride in me
(That's gone you know),but I, at every point;
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.
There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
That length of convent-wall across the way
Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;
The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,
And autumn grows, autumn in everything.
Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape
As if I saw alike my work and self
And all that I was born to be and do,
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.
How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!
This chamber for exampleturn your head
All that's behind us! You don't understand
Nor care to understand about my art,
But you can hear at least when people speak:
And that cartoon, the second from the door
It is the thing, Love! so such things should be
Behold Madonna!I am bold to say.
I can do with my pencil what I know,
What I see, what at bottom of my heart
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep
Do easily, toowhen I say, perfectly,
I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,
Who listened to the Legate's talk last week,
And just as much they used to say in France.
At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!
No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:
I do what many dream of, all their lives,
Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who striveyou don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter)so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,
Enter and take their place there sure enough,
Though they come back and cannot tell the world.
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.
The sudden blood of these men! at a word
Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
I, painting from myself and to myself,
Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame
Or their praise either. Somebody remarks
Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,
His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey,
Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
I know both what I want and what might gain,
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh
"Had I been two, another and myself,
"Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.
Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth
The Urbinate who died five years ago.
('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)
Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
Above and through his artfor it gives way;
That arm is wrongly putand there again
A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,
Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,
He means rightthat, a child may understand.
Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:
But all the play, the insight and the stretch
(Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?
Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think
More than I merit, yes, by many times.
But had youoh, with the same perfect brow,
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare
Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!
Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
"God and the glory! never care for gain.
"The present by the future, what is that?
"Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!
"Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!"
I might have done it for you. So it seems:
Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.
Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;
The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?
In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the will's somewhatsomewhat, too, the power
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.
'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,
That I am something underrated here,
Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.
The best is when they pass and look aside;
But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.
Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,
Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,
In that humane great monarch's golden look,
One finger in his beard or twisted curl
Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile,
One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,
I painting proudly with his breath on me,
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,
And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,
This in the background, waiting on my work,
To crown the issue with a last reward!
A good time, was it not, my kingly days?
And had you not grown restless but I know
'Tis done and past: 'twas right, my instinct said:
Too live the life grew, golden and not grey,
And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.
How could it end in any other way?
You called me, and I came home to your heart.
The triumph wasto reach and stay there; since
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?
Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;
"The Roman's is the better when you pray,
"But still the other's Virgin was his wife"
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
My better fortune, I resolve to think.
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . .
(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,
Too lifted up in heart because of it)
"Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub
"Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
"Who, were he set to plan and execute
"As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
"Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"
To Rafael's!And indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk herequick, thus, the line should go!
Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?
Do you forget already words like those?)
If really there was such a chance, so lost,
Is, whether you'renot gratefulbut more pleased.
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
If you would sit thus by me every night
I should work better, do you comprehend?
I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;
Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
Come from the window, love,come in, at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!
Let us but love each other. Must you go?
That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
Must see youyou, and not with me? Those loans?
More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
While hand and eye and something of a heart
Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?
I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The grey remainder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
How I could paint, were I but back in France,
One picture, just one morethe Virgin's face,
Not yours this time! I want you at my side
To hear themthat is, Michel Agnolo
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.
I take the subjects for his corridor,
Finish the portrait out of handthere, there,
And throw him in another thing or two
If he demurs; the whole should prove enough
To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,
What's better and what's all I care about,
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!
Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
The Cousin! what does he to please you more?

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.
I regret little, I would change still less.
Since there my past life lies, why alter it?
The very wrong to Francis!it is true
I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
My father and my mother died of want.
Well, had I riches of my own? you see
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:
And I have laboured somewhat in my time
And not been paid profusely. Some good son
Paint my two hundred pictureslet him try!
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,
You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me
To coverthe three first without a wife,
While I have mine! Sostill they overcome
Because there's still Lucrezia,as I choose.

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

~ Robert Browning, Andrea del Sarto
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