'Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing
To love what death can touch.
~ 12th century poem quoted by Francis Weller in THE WILD EDGE OF SORROW
There is a powerful stage of spiritual growth where longing for the Friend, the Beloved, is a consuming passion, a burning. And there is another place where personal longing for God gets pushed over into a vast Silence.
