July-August 2000 (Vol. XIII, No. 7)

Oh, that I might ever know
Your Presence in every face
Your Pulse in every heart;
That I might ever feel
Your Breath in every breeze
Your Touch in each rain drop;
That I might ever see
Your Smile in every bloom
Your Might in each sunrise.
And, oh, please grant
That I might view
Life's beauty through
Your Eyes.

There were quite a few angles around in the midst of that ruin, hatred, and anger — including a little flower. I had to do my best to go in that direction of beauty. I saw that life is not only cruelty and confusion and ignorance, but life also has many heartfelt people, wonderful people who are trying to do their best. You don't need to see ten thousands flowers in order to see that so much beauty in life is waving to you and saying hello to you. We try to live in beauty, in that light of goodness.

The wonderful beauty of prayer is that the opening of our heart is as natural as the opening of a flower. To let a flower open and bloom it is only necessary to let it BE; so if we simply ARE, if we become and remain still and silent, our heart cannot but be open, the Spirit cannot but pour through into the whole of our being. It is for this we have been created.

All through her life, nature had been for Madeleva "beauty's self and beauty's giver." Through it, the divine revealed itself in natural ephiphanies:

Can I not find you in all winds that blow,
In the wild loneliness of lark and plover,
In slender shadow trees upon the snow?

This poem suggests that her prayers had gone beyond words; apparently, only silence could express them. If simplicity, in prayer as in life, is a sign of maturing sanctity, then Madeleva's inner life would seem to have deepened through the years.

All of the sense organs are both organs and capacity. The synthesizing acting of the heart continuously creates a unity of the inner world and outer world. Moments in which we perceive this unity are moments of the experience of beauty. Beauty is thus a consciousness of the heart. The heart has always been connected with love due to this relation between bringing what seems to be separated into conjoining as profound beauty.

Only in solitude can you discover a sense of your own beauty. The Divine Artist sent no one here without the depth and light of divine beauty. This beauty is frequently concealed behind the dull facade of routine. Only in your solitude will you come upon your own beauty.