Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. The mind that
responds to the intellectual and spiritual values that lie hidden in a poem, a painting, or
a piece of music, discovers a spiritual vitality that lifts it above itself, takes it out of
itself, and makes it present to itself on a level of being that it did not know it could ever
achieve.
~ Thomas Merton in A THOMAS MERTON READER ed. by Thomas P. McDonnell
Fifty years of marriage is the essence of a journey that spans uphills and downhills, goals achieved; unexpected joys, and times of failure, disappointments, and offenses that sought forgiveness. The thirteenth chapter of Corinthians is a discipline and a constant for the days and years. Love is not arrogant or rude, love glories not in one-upman-ship or being right, love suffers and is kind, love hangs in there. And ultimately this delicate, gentle but tough bond supersedes all else and becomes the one imperishable gift we can have if we are humble enough to receive it.
~ Ross Cameron in DEEP IN THE FAMILIAR by J. C. Borton
