··· Tags pointing to: darkness ···

The flame of love
grows as it is divided
it increases by being shared
from one, then two, then three
and darkness is transformed into glory
and the walls reflect its light
Share your flame!
Share your flame!

— St. John of the Cross  <link>

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

— Helen Keller  <link>

Seek Love in the pity of others’ woe,
In the gentle relief of another’s care,
In the darkness of night and the winter’s snow,
In the naked and outcast, seek Love there!

— William Blake  <link>

Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed.

— Corita Kent  <link>

When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly.

— Edward Teller  <link>

Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.

— Meister Eckhart  <link>

I am certain everything is gift.
I am certain we are entitled to nothing.
I am certain the wells for pain and joy are not separate.
I am certain bitterness and healing are a choice.
I am certain that running from your darkness leads to greater darkness.
I am certain the darkness is held ultimately by light.
I am certain that the words from scripture “In Him we live and move and have our being” are not poetic, they are actual physical reality.

— Paula D’Arcy  <link>

When a spider plunges from a fixed point to its consequences, it always sees before it an empty space where it can never set foot, no matter how it wriggles.

— Søren Kierkegaard  <link>

Only Then

A rabbi asked his students, “When is it at dawn that one can tell the light from the darkness?”

One student replied, “When I can tell a goat from a donkey.”

“No,” answered the rabbi.

Another said, “When I can tell a palm tree from a fig.”

“No,” answered the rabbi again.

“Well, then what is the answer?” his students pressed him.

“Only when you look into the face of every man and every woman and see your brother and your sister,” said the rabbi. “Only then have you seen the light. All else is still darkness.”

— Hasidic wisdom  <link>

There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him, that in the end, the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.

— J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (p.901)  <link>

Only in silence the word,
only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk’s flight
on the empty sky.

— Ursula K. LeGuin  <link>