We are creatures of spirit and made for the Beloved, for the ultimate mystery that has no name. As creatures of spirit, our longing for the sacred is not only a private relationship with the holy other. It is a call to honor the sacred worth of every creature.

When we realize something other than ourselves is really real, that it suffers like we do and sings out its name like we do, compassion and justice naturally arise. “The poet produces beauty by fixing his [sic] attention on something real.

Beauty opens the door to the significance of beings, and having seen and recognized this, we can no longer be unmoved or indifferent.

But whoever we are, we are made for the Beloved and made to share the Beloved’s delight in and care for the world. The responsibilities of ordinary life do not alienate us from our nature. They are the environment in which we encounter it.

A contemplative way of life is not simply adding on meditation or prayer practices to our beliefs about God. It is a wild journey that unravels our beliefs about God in order to drop into deeper relationship with the Divine Beloved.

Diversity is the fundamental quality of creation and of all beauty. No single note makes a song. No single sound captures the chant of a moving creek. No flower exhausts the possibilities of color and fragrance. We humans like to keep things small and limited—two genders, one race, one religion, one nation. But the divine creativity is infinitely

“If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright” (Luke 11:36, RSV). In this saying Jesus invites us to remember who we are: we are light and are witnesses to the light. We are partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:3, 4).

But beauty is a spiritual matter, and as such it is no respecter of social status. Beauty opens onto the world beyond our private concerns.

“If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright” (Luke 11:36, RSV). In this saying Jesus invites us to remember who we are: we are light and are witnesses to the light. We are partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:3, 4).