QUOTES ---------------------------->

"Love on the merely horizontal plane will eventually peter out and vanish unless it is consistently confronted with its opposite in the vertical worship of God... So too, the worship of God which departs from contact with the heart of mankind in its total misery will grow sterile, hard, even bitter. There must be both. If it takes a man and a woman to make a marriage, it also takes a head and a heart to make a human being, a person... One must take both and by total effort keep them at the point of fusion where the light of God's glory welds all things together in love."

"So gradually one comes to know what it is to he a human, and learns the greatest art, the art of love. And having come so far, a person may be said at least to have begun doing what shall be done for all eternity, in heaven, where there shall be neither male nor female and where we are not given in marriage, but shall be as the angels, whole, one pure flame of love."

Ð Matthew Kelty; Sermons In A Monastery
Father Matthew is a monk of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky

"To serve the God of love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one's neighbor... In the true Christian vision of God's love, the idea of worthiness loses its significance. Revelation of the mercy of God makes the whole problem of worthiness something almost laughable: the discovery that worthiness is of no special consequence (since no one could ever, by himself, be strictly worthy to be loved with such a love) is a true liberation of the spirit."

– Thomas Merton; New Seeds of Contemplation

"My true meaning and worth are shown to me not in my estimate of myself, but in the eyes of the one who loves me; and that one must love me as I am, with my faults and limitations, revealing to me the truth that these faults and limitations cannot destroy my worth in their eyes; and that I am therefore valuable as a person, in spite of my shortcomings, in spite of the imperfections of my exterior 'package'."

– Thomas Merton; Love and Living

POEMS ---------------------------->

Simeon's Hope
by Dave Nixon
(our friend Dave is a member of St. Elizabeth's Community House at Vineyard Central Community Church in Cincinnati, OH. He founded that church and now serves on their pastoral council. Dave is a writer and is currently finishing up a collection of poetry and fine-tuning a short story.)

Is it possible that on an obscure corner of a forgotten neighborhood, on a littered street lined with ugly housing blanketed by intrusive wires hanging in a polluted sky breathed by despairing throats Ñ is it just possible that right now between lung breath and heart beat a mystery so glorious and bright is unfolding that it escapes our tired, analytic eyes, something so scintillating and substantial that when it breaks upon our dullness we will stumble in embarrassment as our assumptions peal away, leaving us naked?

Come, o come.

Daily I look, feet pinned to this land, peripheral vision cut off. I watch Bill the drunk, shuffling unsteadily down the sidewalk. Is it him? Toothless Jackie in a binge of rage. Her? That small filthy child bereft of playmate or oversight? What am I missing? What seeing but not seeing?

I donÕt know.
ItÕs that simple.
But I cannot rid myself of the thought
that if I miss it here,
I will see it nowhere else.

The Soul's Union With God
by St. John of the Cross (15th century Spanish Mystic - Monk)
Translator: Roy Campbell

Songs of the soul in rapture at having arrived at the height of perfection, which is union with God by the road of spiritual negation.

Upon a gloomy night,
With all my cares to loving ardours flushed,
O venture of delight!
With nobody in sight
I went abroad when all my house was hushed

In safety, in disguise,
In darkness up the secret stair I crept,
O happy enterprise!
Concealed from other eyes
When all my house at length in silence slept.

Upon that lucky night
In secrecy, inscrutable to sight,
I went without discerning
And with no other light
Except for that which in my heart was burning.

It lit and led me through
More certain than the light of noonday clear
To where One waited near
Whose presence well I knew,
There where no other presence might appear.

Oh night that was my guide!
Oh darkness dearer than the morning's pride,
Oh night that joined the lover
To the beloved bride
Transfiguring them each into the other.

Within my flowering breast
Which only for himself entire I save
He sank into his rest
And all my gifts I gave
Lulled by the airs with which the cedars wave.

Over the ramparts fanned
While the fresh wind was fluttering his tresses,
With his serenest hand
My neck he wounded, and
Suspended every sense with its caresses.

Lost to myself I stayed
My face upon my lover having laid
From all endevour ceasing:
And all my cares releasing
Threw them amongst the lilies there to fade.

MOVIES ---------------------------->

- Lord of The Rings (Fellowship of the Ring)
(we await Dec. 19th with great anticipation!!!)
- O Brother Where Art Thou
(instant classic! "...and stay out of the Woolworths!")
- The Last Temptation of Christ
(yeah, that's right - watch it before you judge!)
- Braveheart
(only a little blood, really)
- Magnolia
(hard for some to swallow - please push through it though - amazing)
- Monty Python & The Holy Grail
(just plain 'ole stupid British fun! watch it or I shall say NEE! to youuuu!)
- Gladiator
(an epic tale! you will be duely impressed. good theme as well)

MUSIC---------------------------->

- Kim Taylor (hear the music - check out her MP3.com page)
recent discovery - this girl has serious talent -
folk musician out of Cincinnati, OH - touring with Over The Rhine