"In generosity and helping others, be like a river.
In compassion and grace, be like the sun.
In concealing other’s faults, be like the night.
In anger and fury, be as if you have died.
In modesty and humility, be like the earth.
In tolerance, be like the sea.
And either appear as you are, or be as you appear."

"Love expands, explodes, liberates, and is the final and only antidote to fear."

The Time Came

The time came when all that is merely human failed,
And the best efforts of medics and wise men with all the tools of two thousand years of trying
Came to nought. I was cut adrift from myself, destined to wither
If I could not salvage a suitable reason to live,
Finally cut off from the omnipotence of parental help,
Finally segregated from the abundant generosity of friends,
Finally having exhausted the relief that the centuries had garnered from the vials and occult theories of civilization’s finest minds.
There were no relieving drugs or miracles, no soothing words enough or clever theorems.
Only the simple words I heard as a child of a God
Who cared
And could make a blind man see for no reason save love.
So I sought Him in simplicity and fear, perhaps in desperation,
More in doubt than faith, more in faltering words than bold eloquence.
I offered Him my energies all the days of my life if He would but attend my pleading, bring back the joy of morning, the serenity of the trees, the soothing resonance of sunset.
I asked not fame or power, security or success, only the wholeness that every other recourse had denied me.
Softly He spoke, not in Sinai’s thunder or Noe’s rain, not in transcending light upon a mountain, nor even in a whispered call along the shores of Galilee.
He only spoke of patience and enough time, of listening to the day and attending the night,
That wholeness would come when my heart was pure again,
And my aspirations were those of a child grown to manhood.

—James Kavanaugh
 

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