She is from God’s world -- a direct disciple, I think, sent down to brighten our lives and teach us of higher things. To me she is beauty itself—the word came after her presence. Each time she smiles, I can only cry, and I think of something I read about the sadness of beauty: just to find it is not hard, but to bear it, that is impossible. If she were totally aware of the beauty she was creating, she would stop in awe of herself. She somehow makes life so much more than it is.
Hope is the foundation or beginning step of faith and an essential expression of love. It provides the formless general aspiration for that which is higher and better, and then faith fills out the picture with the specific shape that a better self or a better world would take. As the expression of love, it sends that image out to the loved one and to the universe. By hoping you are taking an active part in the process by which the present creates the future.
Hope may be the “forgotten” virtue set between faith and love, but it is the essential link between them that enables them both to work at top efficiency.
This is true faith: connection to the universe and its inner divine consciousness through freedom, individual uniqueness, regard for one's true personality, grounding of the divine within, all expressed through love. It saves, for it makes us one with that which endures and can never be lost. It gives peace, for it brings the gift of Oneness. We are only upset by that which is outside ourselves and threatens to come in and destroy, or by the reflection of the intruder within. If we truly know we are One with all that is, nothing is outside us, nothing can threaten, so there can only be peace.
