Contemplation is the highest expression of man's intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware, that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent and infinitely abundant source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that source.
~ from NEW SEEDS OF CONTEMPLATION by Thomas Merton
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.
