A message was brought to me that a young woman who was dying had asked that I come visit her. She was fevered and emaciated; at first glance, a forbidding sight. Then I noticed her eyes -- huge and glowing, so incredibly beautiful I was entranced by them. All my embarrassment disappeared; all my searching about in my mind for some appropriate sanctimony became unnecessary. "What beautiful eyes!" I heard myself saying to her sister. She agreed saying that her sister had always had beautiful, glowing eyes. A silence fell upon us, and we were all three caught up in a wonderful joy. I knew, of course, what it was -- God's love enfolding us like lights from heaven.
~ from CONFESSIONS OF A TWENTIETH CENTURY PILGRIM by Malcolm Muggeridge
The world is holy. We are holy. All life is holy. Daily prayers are delivered on the lips of breaking waves, the whisperings of grasses, the shimmering of leaves.
~ from TALKING TO GOD: PORTRAIT OF A WORLD AT PRAYER by Terry Tempest Williams, thanks to Liz Stewart